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.
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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 ...
Marriott Watson, H B
(1863-1921) Australian-born editor and author, in New Zealand 1873-1885, afterwards in the UK; the son of Henry Crocker Marriott Watson. His family surname was simply Watson, but both he and his father used the fuller name in honour of the distinguished Marriott family, with whom a relationship was claimed. Although some of his stories, assembled conveniently in The Devil of the Marsh; and Other Stories (coll 2004) edited by James ...
Schneider, Isidor
(1896-1977) US journalist, poet and author, who also served as Literary Editor of the left-wing journal New Masses in the 1930s and 1940s; of sf interest is Doctor Transit (1925) as by I S, an Identity Exchange tale in which a young married couple, unhappy with their native genders, explore the coefficient of Sex in human relations by persuading the eponymous Scientist to operate on ...
Delap, Richard
(1942-1987) US editor, reviewer and author who entered the sf world as a fan and soon began to publish book reviews, beginning with pieces in the Fanzine Granfalloon and contributing to "The Future in Books" column in Amazing Stories during 1959-1960. In Delap's F & SF Review he created a valuable review organ, whose folding was regretted. As a reviewer he was highly visible, being ...
Cook, Rick
Working name of US author James Richard Cook (1944-2022), who began publishing work of genre interest with "Mortality" in Analog for January 1987; he subsequently published several sf stories in this journal, and a very large number of nonfiction pieces on computer technology. As an author of fiction he is most noted for his fantasy, primarily for the Wizard sequence of Technofantasy-tinged tales – beginning with ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...