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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 ...
Waldo, Cedric Dane
Pseudonym of Greek-born author Cecil Drummond-Wolff (1864-1943), in the UK from infancy, brother of Adeline Kingscote (1860-1908), who wrote as by Lucas Cleeve, none of whose sixty novels seem to employ the fantastic. Waldo's The Ban of the Gubbe (1896) Equipoisally presents a folkloristic rendering of a race of fish-like beings who have for aeons co-inhabited Scotland with Homo sapiens, but in cod Evolutionary ...
Sherriff, R C
(1896-1975) UK screenwriter, playwright and author, active from 1919. He is best known for his hit play, the nonfantastic Journey's End (performed 9 December 1928 Apollo Theatre, London: 1929), directed by James Whale, who also directed the 1930 film version; it remains the best-known play about World War One, in which Sherriff had served 1914-1917. He also wrote the screenplay for Whale's version of the The ...
Eldershaw, M Barnard
Collaborative pseudonym used by Australian authors and critics Marjorie Faith Barnard (1897-1987) and Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw (1897-1956) for four well-regarded mainstream novels 1929-1937; nearly all the writing was done by Barnard – who had published a solo book as early as 1920 – with Eldershaw being the critical editorial eye. Barnard long claimed that a fifth novel, also published as by M Barnard Eldershaw and the most distinguished work under this pseudonym, was by her ...
Biss, Gerald
(1876-1922) UK journalist with a particular interest in motoring, and prolific author of serial stories syndicated in many newspapers worldwide, five of which subsequently appeared as hardback thriller novels. In the Checklist below the earliest known serialization venues are given but may not be reliable. Biss's second novel The White Rose Mystery (serialized 1904 as "The White Rose"; 1907) is arguably sf, dealing as it does with a modern-day Jacobite rebellion backed by a ...
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 ...