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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
Sponsor of the day: Handheld Press
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 ...
Thunderbirds
UK animated-puppet tv series (1965-1966). An AP Films Production for ATV/ITC. Created Sylvia and Gerry Anderson. Produced by Gerry Anderson (season 1), Reg Hill (season 2). Writers included Dennis Spooner, Alan Fennell, Alan Pattillo. Directors included David Lane, David Elliott, Desmond Saunders, Pattillo. Model effects supervised by Derek Meddings. 2 seasons, 32 50-minute episodes (re-edited in the USA so that each episode occupied two half-hour timeslots). Colour. / This animated ...
Volt
Pseudonym of Italian Futurist poet and theoretician Vincenzo Fani Ciotti (1888-1927), whose sf novel, La fine del mondo ["The End of the World"] (1921), is a declaredly Fascist tale whose hero – frustrated at Earth's refusal to clear Jupiter of its natives so that humanity can press outwards to create a Galactic Empire – travels to that planet, where he immolates himself in a great explosion that destroys ...
Longevity in Publications
It has long been understood that sf and fantasy have been blessed by a remarkable number of writers whose lives and careers have been notably extended (see Longevity in Writers). The phenomenon is also noticeable in SF Magazines and the extended tenure of several editors. The longest surviving magazine, at least by name, is Weird Tales which continues today, ninety years after it first ...
Champsaur, Félicien
(1858-1934) French author, mostly of heated romances, who began to publish work of genre interest with an Apes as Human tale, "La Légende du singe" ["The Legend of the Ape"], for La Jeune France in 1878; with another tale, "Le dernier homme" ["The Last Man"] (see Last Man), it was assembled as Les Deux singes ["The Two Apes"] (coll 1885). The collection was included with ...
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 ...