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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 ...
Raines, Theron
(1925-2012) US literary agent and author in whose sf novel, The Singing: A Fable about What Makes us Human (1988), a team of Martians crashes its UFO into the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where one of them, according to plan, meets and impregnates the human girl through whose eyes the tale is told. Both sides get what they need: for Mars new blood, and for the Earth unsubtle flattery of our tough and ...
Strasser, Todd
(1950- ) US author, highly prolific in children's and Young Adult fiction, with more than 140 such titles published. His first sf novel, The Mall from Outer Space (1987), was a juvenile in which shopping malls are taken over by Aliens. His remaining sf consists mainly of film Ties, where his novelizations include Honey, I Blew up the Kid (1992), ...
Alper, Gerald A
(? - ) Writer of whom nothing is known beyond his authorship of the Time-Travel novel My Name Is Vladimir Sloifoiski (1970), a routine exploration of Identity issues. [JC]
Charlton, L E O
(1879-1958) UK author and military officer (in the Royal Flying Corps throughout World War One) whose career became precarious after the war ended; on secondment to Iraq in the early 1920s, he had responded negatively to his discovery that "an air bomb in Iraq was, more or less, the equivalent of a police truncheon at home", and resigned his post. Much of his writing from this point deals with war in the air; his predictions of the extent of air power in the ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...