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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
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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 ...
Walker, Samuel
Pseudonym of the US author (? -? ) of The Reign of Selfishness: A Story of Concentrated Wealth (1891; vt Dry Bread 1899), a Near Future tale in which a country-dominating trust collapses after the economy (see Economics) fails and a Pandemic afflicts the land; an idealistic business man takes over, ruralizes the country, introduces kindly forms ...
Turn-On
US tv series (1969). George Schlatter-Ed Friendly Productions. Created by Friendly and Schlatter. Writers included Albert Brooks. Cast included Tim Conway (guest host), Teresa Graves, Ken Greenwald and Maura McGiveney. One episode. Colour. / A hapless effort to duplicate the success of George Schlatter's sketch comedy series Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (1968-1973), Turn-On is widely regarded as the worst disaster in American television history. A few stations ...
BEM
A once common item of sf Terminology, being an acronym of Bug-Eyed Monster and referring to the type of Alien creature, usually menacing, which was regularly pictured on the covers of SF Magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. [PN] see also: Monsters. /
Lichtman, Robert
(1942-2022) US fan editor and publisher, active in Fandom since the late 1950s; a contributor to various amateur press associations (see APA) including FAPA, OMPA and SAPS; married to Carol Carr from 2000 until her death in 2021. He published many Fanzines from 1959 [see Fancyclopedia 3 under links ...
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 ...