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Saturday 27 July 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Arthur C Clarke Award
This award has been given since 1987 for the best sf novel whose UK first edition was published during the previous calendar year, and consists of an inscribed bookend and a sum of money from a grant initially donated by Arthur C Clarke. In 2001 the prize money – until then a constant £1000 – was increased to £2001 as a gesture to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); it has since risen by ...
Xenoforming
A term logically based on the more familiar Terraforming, to denote the (usually gradual) transformation of a world to suit Alien rather than Earth-human Biology and Ecology. / The highest sf drama arises when xenoforming attempts are initiated by Extraterrestrials wishing to transform Earth for their own purposes. The Red Weed introduced ...
Locus Award
Popular Award voted on by readers of the leading sf news magazine (or Newszine) Locus, and presented annually since 1971. Each year's Locus awards normally honour work first published in the previous year. Thanks to their exceptionally wide reader base, these sf awards have come to share the stature of the Hugos (which reflect the preferences of fans and professionals who attend ...
Cordy, Michael
(1961- ) UK author whose first novel, The Miracle Strain (1997), suggests that, through Near Future developments in DNA research, a new Messiah – whose genetic makeup will replicate Jesus Christ's unique makeup, and who will therefore be able to heal the sick, etc – can be found, thus satisfying the long-held plans of a secret Brotherhood, which has existed since the first Messiah's death. Crime Zero ...
Dell, Berenice V
(? -? ) US author of one registered book, The Silent Voice (1925), an anti-Feminist Utopia, set four millennia hence, after huge upheavals due to war and other Disasters, America is an Archipelago surrounded by the risen seas. In the south, a land ruled by "mongrel" women (they have interbred with other races; see ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...