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Friday 23 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 ...
Rossetto, Louis Jr
(1949- ) US author of Take-over: A Speculative and Otherwise Utterly Fictional Account of How Richard Milhous Nixon Will Usurp the Power of his Office, Take Over the Country, and Commit Other Heinous and Nasty Acts (1974), a very Near Future Satire that was clearly overtaken by events. [JC]
Safroni-Middleton, Arnold
A working name of the UK composer and author born George Arnold Haynes Middleton (1873-1950), who also signed some of his books Count Safroni or Count M Safroni. Under Many Names (1937; rev vt The Dreaming Skull 1948 as by A Safroni-Middleton) as by Count M Safroni is an sf novel whose protagonist conducts his interplanetary travels via thought waves, meeting en route an advanced Extraterrestrial civilization. [JC]
Van Greenaway, Peter
Almost certainly the working name of UK lawyer, actor, scriptwriter and author Arthur Greenaway (1927-1988), according to information obtained by Steve Holland; he focused on fiction from about 1960. Though he never became known as a genre writer, much of his work was sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Crucified City (1962), a Post-Holocaust story set in a ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...