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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 ...
Snegov, Sergei
Pseudonym of Russian author Sergei Iosifovich Shtein (1910-1994), known as the father of Russian space opera. His Posol bez Veritel'nyh Gramo (coll of linked stories 1977; trans Alex Miller as Ambassador Without Credentials 1989) describes the interstellar adventures of two sibling Scientists, Roy and Henry Vasilyev, as they confront problems couched in ...
Smyth, Clifford
(1866-1943) US editor of the New York Times Book Review 1913-1922, and author of The Gilded Man: A Romance of the Andes (1918), a Lost Race tale featuring the discovery of a living Incan civilization deep Underground beneath the South American Andes, boasting the high Technology necessary to maintain life in this redoubt, the Power Source for ...
Bywater, Hector Charles
(1884-1940) UK journalist and author of influential works on the military applications of sea-power, and of a Future War novel on the same theme, The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-1933 (1925), which quite remarkably predicts a massive Japanese surprise attack and early triumphs, and an ultimate American victory, the latter due in large part to an inexhaustible supply of energy, once the American navy began to ...
Malik, Usman T
(1981- ) Pakistan-born doctor and author, sometimes resident in US in his medical role, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Crimson Storm" in Thirteen Stories for June 2003. He continues to concentrate mostly on shorter forms, though the ambitious The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn (22 April 2015 Tor.com; 2015 ebook) is of novella length, and engages in Equipoisal ...
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 ...