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Tuesday 13 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 13 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 ...
Gatch, Tom Jr
Working name of Thomas Leigh Gatch (1925-1974), US West Point graduate, author, playwright and army reservist. His Alternate-History sf novel, King Julian (1954), depicts the USA as a monarchy – the Jonbar Point leading to this timeline being that when asked, George Washington did accept the crown of the Americas. In the novel's alternate present day, his descendants still rule. Gatch vanished during an ...
Mizutama Keinojō
Working name of a Japanese artist and Manga illustrator Kei Yoshida (1959-2014), born Kei Okabe. The daughter of the artist and scientific journalist Fuyuhiko Okabe (1922-2005), Mizutama first worked as an illustrator for music magazines, before drifting into sf as an artist and columnist. She won the Seiun Award for Art (see Illustration) in 1993 and 1995 for early instalments ...
Winch, E
Working name of New-Zealand-born author Marie Elspeth Agnes Winch(1895-1939), in the UK from childhood. Of some sf interest is The Mountain of Gold (1928), a Lost Race tale set in South America, where Incan remains lead deep into the mountains, where a "primitive" Indian "tribe", which has established a Utopian society, is condescendingly discovered, along with Apes as Human foes, and an ...
McGoran, Jon
(? - ) US journalist and author, whose forensics-based crime series as by D H Dublin edges towards but does not actually enter Technothriller country. He is of sf interest for his Spliced sequence beginning with Spliced (2017), set in a Near Future world where Genetically Engineered "chimeras", part-human part-animal, are ...
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 ...