SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 24 January 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
Site updated on 19 January 2026
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von Däniken, Erich
(1935-2026) Swiss author of a series of purportedly nonfiction books, beginning with Erinnerungen an die Zukunft (1968; trans Michael Heron as Chariots of the Gods? 1969), which, based on a mass of often suspect and internally inconsistent data, argues that the Earth was visited by at least one Alien spacefaring race before and at the dawn of historical time; thus, for example, the Great Pyramid of ...
Adams, Scott
(1957-2026) US author and cartoonist best known for the Dilbert strip published from 1989, which when at its best superbly (in terms of concept and accuracy of Satire rather than quality of drawing) satirized contemporary office life and corporate incompetence. As with most ambitious modern comic strips, it segues frequently into sf and fantasy tropes – such as Robot office workers, wish-fulfilling ...
Thurlow, David
(1932-2021) UK journalist for various local papers, the Daily Express (for 26 years) and The Times; author of several thrillers and true crime books. His sf novel for Robert Hale Limited is The Sleepers (1980), set in a Near Future Dystopian Britain under control of the extreme Left; the only opposition remaining – which proves successful – is the ...
Mandel, Emily St John
(1979- ) Canadian-born journalist and author, in the US from early adulthood, of sf interest for her fourth novel, Station Eleven (2014), in which the sudden death on stage of an actor performing William Shakespeare's King Lear (performed circa 1605) precipitates (or marks) the onslaught of a deadly Pandemic (see Disaster); a young girl, also on ...
St George, David
Joint pseudonym of UK author David Phillips (? - ) and Bulgarian engineer and author Georgi Markov, the latter in the UK from about 1971; his assassination in London at the hands of Bulgarian agents was admitted only in 1990 after the old government fell. In their spoofish Near Future Satire, The Right Honourable Chimpanzee (1978), a crisis-ridden UK ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...