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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 ...
Ubukata Tow
(1977- ) Pen-name of a Japanese author and scriptwriter who often writes the prose and Anime or Manga versions of his stories, and who maintains strong connections to the world of computer games. Raised largely in Singapore and Nepal, Ubukata returned to his native Japan to complete his education in his teens. He dropped out of Waseda University's department of literature shortly after winning ...
Nostradamus
Latin rendering of the surname of French astrologer, physician and author Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566) who is of Proto SF interest primarily for his book-length poem Les Prophéties (1555; exp 1557; further exp 1568; best trans Richard Siburth as The Prophecies 2012) [for further editions see Checklist below], a non-systematic but immensely influential assemblage of linked quatrains, ultimately 942 of them grouped ...
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Videogame (1999). Firaxis Games (FG). Designed by Brian Reynolds, Sid Meier. Platforms: Win (1999); Mac (2000); Lin (2001). / Alpha Centauri is a 4X Game based on an attempt to colonize the eponymous solar system. It is much influenced by the designers' Civilization series of historical games, particularly Sid Meier's Civilization II (1996 ...
Farthing
UK Digest-size Semiprozine, side-stapled, issues ranging between 70 and 96 pages, edited by Wendy Bradley. It ran for five full issues, July 2005 to January 2007, plus a mini-issue numbered 4.5 (December 2006). The title was ambiguous, not only implying the old British coin, the farthing, which was the smallest denomination, thus implying a small magazine, but also meaning "far thing", which adequately describes the contents. Running ...
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 ...