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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 ...
De Wailly, Gaston
(1857-1943) French playwright and author, who sometimes signed as Commandant G de Wailly; though his dramas have been generally forgotten, his several sf novels, all cast in a Vernian mode (see Jules Verne), are of some interest. The most successful may be Le Meurtrier du globe (feuilleton format 15 May-23 October 1910 Journal de Voyages as by Commandant G de Wailly; 1925; trans Brian Stableford ...
Defontenay, C I
(1819-1856) French physician – he has been described as the inventor of plastic surgery – and author whose Star, ou Ψ de Cassiopée: histoire merveilleuse de l'un des mondes de l'espace, nature singulière, coutumes, voyages, littérature starienne, poèmes et comédies traduits du starien (1854; trans P J Sokolowski as Star (Psi Cassiopeia) 1975 US, with intro by Pierre Versins) ...
Randall, Rodger
(? -? ) UK author of whom nothing is known beyond the ascription to him of one novel of sf interest, The Scarlet Death (circa 1935), in which a criminal Mad Scientist peddles to other criminals a deadly secret Drug. [JC]
Carr, John F
(1944- ) US author who began publishing sf with The Ophidian Conspiracy (1976), an unpretentious Space Opera which demonstrated considerable imagination but a stylistic gaucheness; both characteristics mark his subsequent novels, Pain Gain (1977) and Carnifax Mardi Gras (extract February 1982 Fantasy Book as "Dance of the Dwarfs"; 1982), though the latter shows 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 ...