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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 ...
Archipelago
An archipelago is a cluster of Islands or Cities or Polders sufficiently intersective to make up a whole larger than the parts, but free from the plethoric incessancy that can lock down the mise-en-scène of a tale set inescapably in some single land [for Polders see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below.] As should become evident, the term archipelago is ...
Koestler, Arthur
(1905-1983) Hungarian-born linguist – he wrote in four languages – journalist, playwright and author. An early Zionist, he began publishing in Tel Aviv in 1925, but abandoned Zionism and left the Middle East by 1929; as a Jewish Communist in Berlin in the early 1930s, he was clearly at risk; he later narrowly avoided execution in the Spanish Civil War, but was admitted to the UK in 1937, becoming a naturalized UK citizen in 1948. / All Koestler's books after the famous ...
Risk 2210 AD
Board Game (2001). Avalon Hill (AH). Designed by Craig Van Ness, Rob Daviau. / Risk 2210 is an excellent example of a game that is easy to learn and hard to master. The rules are a variant of those in Risk (1957 Miro as La Conquete de Monde) designed by Albert Lamorisse, a highly abstract representation of the Napoleonic wars which encourages the formation of rapidly shifting alliances between players. In Risk 2210's ...
Wright, John C
(1961- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Not Born a Man" in Aberrations for Christmas 1994, and whose novels, most of them comprising series, vigorously attest the value of modern Space Opera as a format or arena capable of representing complex philosophical and (perhaps less rewardingly to a general audience) Religious arguments, ranging from ...
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 ...