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 ...
Potter, Robert
(1831-1908) Irish-born author and clergyman, in Australia from early manhood; his sf novel The Germ Growers: An Australian Story of Adventure and Mystery (1892; vt The Germ Growers: The Strange Adventures of Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham 1892) was published in Australia as by Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham, the names of the protagonists, but in the UK as "edited by" Potter. A race of discarnate beings, denizens of the ...
Prime Press
Short-lived (the business had failed by 1953) US Small Press specializing in sf; based in Philadelphia, founded in 1947 by Oswald Train (editorial) and James Williams, along with two fans, Alfred C Prime and Armand E Waldo, who later dropped out. Its first published title was the humorous fantasy The Mislaid Charm (February 1941 Unknown; 1947) by Alexander M ...
Whitham, John W
(1868-1952) US author of Interworld (1932), a tale set in a not clearly delineated Near Future where Homo sapiens remain backward on the home planet, but other civilizations flourish on Mars, which boasts high Technology and universal peace, and elsewhere. [JC]
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
Videogame (1992; vt Dune II: Battle for Arrakis Europe). Westwood Studios (WS). Designed by Joseph Bostic, Aaron Powell. Platforms: DOS (1992); Amiga (1993); MegaDrive (1994). / While it was not the first Computer Wargame to run in real time, Dune II was the first Real Time Strategy game as the form is understood today. Although the game was ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...