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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 ...
Green, Roger Lancelyn
(1918-1987) UK scholar, critic, translator (from classical Greek) and author, with a special interest in Fantasy, much of his fiction comprising retellings of traditional material for young readers. Tellers of Tales (1948) [for expansions of this title see Checklist below] is an invaluable early companion to this literature. He was a member of the Inklings group. Among his many works those most relevant to sf studies ...
Le Breton, Thomas
Pseudonym of UK author Thomas Murray Ford (1854-1932) who usually published in the Boys' Papers; he also wrote as John Le Breton. Of sf interest is The Submarine Privateer: A Tale of the Great Boer War; And, "The Land of Mystery": A Story of Indian Marvels (coll 1905), the first story describing the Invention and deployment of a superior submarine, and the second locating a Lost World ...
Stein, Herbert
(1916-1999) US economist and author, whose conservative-liberal views on markets and governments seem far more centrist than they did in the twentieth century; he is known for an aphorism, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," which became something of a mantra for those opposed to governmental "interference" with neoliberal aspirations. He wrote one Near Future sf novel, On the Brink (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977) with Benjamin ...
Westwood, Alvin
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? - ) of Sinister Forces (1953), a Space Opera in which the exploration of a wandering planet with dead inhabitants leads to a threat of interstellar War. [JC]
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 ...