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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 ...
Roguelike
Roguelikes or Rogue-likes are a type of Computer Role Playing Game or CRPG with a number of common gameplay features. The player must move their character, or party of characters through a dungeon or map with a series of levels, fighting Monsters of increasing difficulty. Most typically, the player is subject to "permadeath"; if a character or member of a party dies, then they are lost permanently. If all characters ...
Rock, James
Almost certainly the pseudonym of US inventor and author Clinton A Patten (? -? ), who patented his design for a monorail in 1893, and in whose name Thro' Space (1909) is copyrighted. "James Rock" tells his own story: a neighbour's Invention of an Antigravity substance allows the two to undertake a Fantastic Voyage, first to Paris, then to the ...
Khoury, Raymond
(1960- ) Lebanon-born investment banker, screenwriter, illustrator and author, mostly either in US from 1975 or latterly in the UK. His Last Templar sequence beginning with The Last Templar (2005), in which a contemporary archaeologist begins to discover, via papers and treasure hidden in a pouch, the true Secret Masters history of the Knights Templar; she is soon joined by an FBI agent. Some scenes are set in the ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Also known as OMD. UK synth-pop band, formed in 1978 by Andy McCluskey (1959- ) and Paul Humphreys (1960- ). OMD rode the slipstream of Kraftwerk inflected synth-pop, much as did Gary Numan and the Human League, although the OMD sound is generally speaking brighter, poppier and more upbeat than that of their fellows. This cheerier tone expresses itself ...
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 ...