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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 ...
Terminal Man, The
Film (1974). Warner Bros. Produced, directed and written by Mike Hodges. Based on The Terminal Man (1972) by Michael Crichton. Cast includes Joan Hackett and George Segal. 107 minutes, cut to 104 minutes. Colour. / Segal plays a man who suffers from violent blackouts as a result of brain damage suffered in a car accident. Doctors use him as an experimental guinea pig: into his brain they insert electrodes linked to a tiny ...
Ishihara Fujio
(1933- ) Japanese sf author, science writer, inventor and bibliographer, who chronicled the publishing history of the genre in Japan in the days before the internet. A graduate in electronics from Waseda University, Ishihara initially worked in telecommunications for the Japanese phone company NTT, before becoming a professor at Tamagawa University. His debut work "Kōsoku Dōro" ["Highway"] (August 1965 S-F Magazine; fixup as ...
Fading Suns
Role Playing Game (1996). Holistic Design (HD). Designed by Bill Bridges, Andrew Greenberg. / Fading Suns is set in a Gothic interstellar empire, morally and intellectually decadent, which has reverted to medieval habits of thought. For unknown reasons, the stars are slowly going out. The society depicted is feudal and strongly religious, consciously evocative of Dark Ages Europe (see ...
Abnett, Nik
Working name of UK author Nicola Vincent-Abnett (1964- ), married to Dan Abnett, with whom she collaborated on two Warhammer Ties as Nik Vincent [see Checklist below]. She began publishing solo work of genre interest with "Arm Every Woman" in Crises and Conflicts (anth 2016) edited by Ian Whates. In her first non-tie novel, Savant (2016), something like ...
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 ...