SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
De Pizan, Christine
(1364-circa 1430) Italian-born poet and author, in France from early childhood. Her name has been variously spelled:her surname has also been given as de Pisan; she was born Cristina da Pizzano. A Feminist decoding of her life justifies the claim that she is the first European woman to support herself as a professional author (Aphra Behn may be the second). She cannot be profitably added to the roster of ...
Hulke, Malcolm
(1924-1979) UK scriptwriter for Television and author whose first scripts were for early series like Target Luna and Pathfinders in Space, but who is best-known for his extensive involvement in the Doctor Who universe, writing several series between 1967 and 1974. For most of these he also wrote Tie novelizations, which were noted for their relative richness of content, beginning with ...
Ashton, Edward
(? - ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with Midnight in Absheron (12 September 2014 Perihelion; 2016 ebook). He is best known for the Mickey7 series of Planetary Romances within a Space Opera frame, beginning with Mickey7 (2022), whose multiply Cloned protagonist serves through several ...
Mindwheel
Videogame (1984). Synapse Software. Designed by Robert Pinsky. Platforms: Atari8, C64, DOS (1984); AtariST (1985). / Written by the noted American poet Robert Pinsky, Mindwheel was originally marketed as an "Electronic Novel". In design terms, however, it is a text-based Adventure game, in which the player takes the role of a "Mind Adventurer". The premise is that the Adventurer's future society is on ...
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 ...