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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 ...
Pilkington, Ace G
(1951-2019) US academic – professor of English and history at Dixie State University, St George, Utah – and sf poet and critic who began to publish work of genre interest with the poem "One Translation of Odysseus" for Amazing Stories in July 1986; several further poems appeared in later issues of this magazine and in such venues as Asimov's and Weird Tales. Pilkington's critical works are ...
Plauger, P J
(1944- ) US physicist and author, involved professionally in computers. He began publishing sf with "Epicycle" in Analog for November 1973, and is best known for "Child of All Ages" (March 1975 Analog), about an immortal woman (see Immortality) who perpetually retains the body of a child (see Children in SF). Plauger won the ...
Robinett, Stephen
(1941-2004) US author and lawyer who began publishing sf as Tak Hallus (apparently Persian for "pen name") with "Minitalent" in Analog for March 1969; most of his shorter work is assembled in Projections (coll 1979), where a sharp wit is allowed free and satirical play. Robinett's first novel, Mindwipe! (December 1969 Analog as by Tak Hallus; exp 1976) as by Steve Hahn, is unexceptional, but Stargate ...
Gamboe, Scott
(1969- ) US author whose Avenger sequence, comprising The Killing Frost (2006) and New Dawn Rising (2009), is Military SF set within an interstellar Space Opera venue, where a human coalition, corrupted from within by politicians, comes close to war with an Alien counterpart hegemony; the hero of the tale breaks all the rules in order to gain ...
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 ...