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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 ...
Crilley, Mark
(1965- ) US creator of the Comic Akiko (1995-current), and of the Akiko series of Young Adult or younger sf adventures, usually in interstellar Space Opera venues lightly spoofed, based on the comic, beginning with Akiko on the Planet Smoo (2000). Crilley has a modest, comical touch with storyline, though he has not seriously stretched himself or ...
Planet of Dinosaurs
Film (1978). Deathbeast Productions. Produced and directed by James K Shea. Written by Ralph Lucas from a story by Jim Aupperle. Creature effects by Doug Beswick and Jim Danforth (uncredited). Cast includes Mary Appleseth, Louie Lawless, Chuck Pennington, Max Thayer and James Whitworth. 83 minutes. Colour. / When the Starship Odyssey's reactor goes critical, nine of the crew manage to escape just before it disintegrates. Their shuttle-craft ...
Williams, David J
(1971- ) UK author whose Cyberpunk-flavoured Autumn Rain Trilogy – comprising The Mirrored Heavens (2008), The Burning Skies (2009) and The Machinery of Light (2010) – begins with the Near Future destruction of a Space Elevator and the assignment to protect America undertaken by two counterintelligence agents, who ...
Wallach, Tommy
(? - ) US author of Young Adult novels whose We All Looked Up (2015) understands a potential Earth-shattering Disaster – a vast Asteroid on collision course with the planet – in terms of the life decisions the four young protagonists of the tale must now face. In Thanks for the Trouble (2016), which is adroitly couched as a ...
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 ...