SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 19 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 14 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 ...
Bornstein, Kate
(1948- ) US performance artist, playwright and author whose Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure (1996) with Caitlin Sullivan is an sf tale whose two protagonists meet in a Near Future Cyberspace where in theory they can play sophisticatedly with their own and others' Gender identities (see Feminism; Sex; ...
Beyond the Stellar Empire
Role Playing Game (1981). Adventures By Mail. Designed by Jack Everitt, Robert Cook, Michael Popolizio. / Beyond the Stellar Empire was a Play by Mail game created in the US, resembling a massively multiplayer Space Sim such as EVE Online (2003) but mediated entirely through text and run in slow motion. In 1992 the UK company KJC Games (KJC) ...
Haibane Renmei
Japanese animated tv series (2002). Radix. Based on the Manga by Yoshitoshi Abe. Directed by Tomokazu Tokoro. Written by Yoshitoshi Abe. Voice cast includes Ryō Hirohashi, Junko Noda, Tamio Ōki and Akiko Yajima. 13 25-minute episodes. Colour. / A girl dreams of falling whilst a crow tries to prevent her descent. Meanwhile, cigarette-smoking Reki (Noda), wearing a halo and small pair of wings, discovers a giant cocoon in a ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...