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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 ...
Phillips, Holly
(1969- ) Canadian author who began to publish work of genre interest with "No Such Thing As an Ex-Con" for On Spec in Summer 2000; much of her early work, not including this story, was assembled as In the Palace of Repose (coll 2005), most of the contents being best read as fantasy; a later collection, At the Edge of Waking (coll 2012), is fantasy. "The Other Grace", however, neatly ...
Shock
US Digest-size magazine. Publisher: Winston Publications Inc. The uncredited editor was possibly Bart Anders. Three bimonthly issues: May, July and September 1960. / 1. This short-lived but high-quality weird fiction magazine – subtitled "The Magazine of Terrifying Tales" – consisted largely of reprints, mostly of strong stories by notable authors, many also active in sf. Selections include "The Emissary" (May 1943 ...
Black Holes
Item of sf Terminology borrowed from Cosmology. The term was coined by the physicist John A Wheeler (1911-2008) in 1969 and adopted immediately and enthusiastically by sf writers. The concept of the black hole is quite complex, and is best approached by the layman through a reliable book of scientific popularization such as A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988) by Stephen W Hawking ...
Cronin, Michael
(1942- ) UK actor, screenwriter, and author; he should not be confused with Michael Cronin, a pseudonym of Brendan Leo Cronin (1907-1987). Cronin's Young Adult sequence, Against the Day – comprising Against the Day (1998), Through the Night (2003) and In the Morning (2005) – is set in a 1940s Britain governed by the Nazis (see Hitler Wins), and ...
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 ...