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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 ...
Milton, Walter R
(1964- ) US author of Inheritance of Vigilance (2002), set in a Post-Holocaust America suddenly exposed to forces – possibly occult – surfacing from the deep past, and Independence Day Testimony (2003), a Military SF tale set in a new warship just as interstellar War breaks out. [JC]
Making Mr Right
Film (1987). Orion. Directed by Susan Seidelman. Written by Floyd Byars, Laurie Frank. Cast includes Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich. 98 minutes. Colour. / The cold, rational, shy Scientist played by Malkovich has designed, in his own image, Ulysses the Android (actually in part a Robot), also played by Malkovich, for use as a space pilot. Public-relations expert Frankie (Magnuson), whose love ...
Downing, Peggy
(1924-2013) US author of books for children and Young Adults, author of the Exitorn Adventures sequence beginning with Brill and the Dragators (1987), which provides a Christian slant on Space Opera for younger readers. Apparent singletons include Help! I'm Drowning! and Other Emergencies (1985) and Help! I'm Shrinking! (1986). [JC]
Freedman, Nancy
(1920-2010) US actress and author whose sf novel, Joshua Son of None (1973), one of the earliest novels to deal with cloning (see Clones), depicts the intrigue surrounding the childhood and adolescence of Joshua Francis Kellogg, cloned in 1963 from the body of John F Kennedy. The Immortals (1976) is borderline sf. [JC]
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...