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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 ...
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
(1792-1822) UK playwright, poet and author whose importance to the development of science fiction (see Proto SF) in the early nineteenth century is tangential to the main drift of his work as a poet; he was, along with Lord Byron and John Keats (1795-1821), one of the central figures of the second wave of British Romantic poetry. Some of his fiction is of interest in the ideational and literary tumult of the era: ...
O'Mahony, T P
(1939- ) Irish journalist and author, working in the former capacity 1967-1989 as religious affairs correspondent for The Irish Press. He is of some sf interest for The Vatican Caper (1981), about the assassination of the imaginary Pope Patrick I, and for the more ambitious The Lynch Years: A Political Fantasy (1986), which circumambiates the life of the real Irish politician Jack Lynch (1917-1999) with material evocative of tall-tale ...
Dig, The
Videogame (1995). LucasArts. Designed by Sean Clark, Brian Moriarty. Platforms: DOS (1995); Mac (1996); Win (2002). / The Dig is a graphical Adventure game using a point and click interface, based on an idea by Steven Spielberg which combined the haunted world of Forbidden Planet with the tense relationships of ...
Flying Saucers over Istanbul
Turkish film (1955; original title Ucan Daireler Istanbulda). Birsel Film. Directed and written by Orhan Erçin. Cast includes Orhan Erçin, Mirella Monro, Zafer Önen, Türkan Samil and Özcan Tekgül. 73 minutes. Black and white. / A lonely hearts club for rich but unattractive women hires belly-dancers to lure potential husbands to the venue; they are delighted when two men turn up, but the men are Sapsal (Önen) ...
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 ...