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Saturday 29 January 2022
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Nicholson, Joseph Shield
(1850-1927) UK mathematician, economist and author, in Scotland from 1880, most famous for Principles of Political Economic (1893-1901 3vols), also well-known for his journalism. He is of sf interest for two novels. Thoth: A Romance (1888; exp 1889) is an impressive Lost-World novel set around 400 BCE, where a City in the North African desert, settled 2,000 years earlier, has benefited from the scientific advances of its ruler, Thoth the First, who remains in Suspended Animation; but ...
Around the World under the Sea
Film (1966). Ivan Tors Productions/MGM. Directed by Andrew Marton. Written by Arthur Weiss, Art Arthur. Cast includes Lloyd Bridges, Shirley Eaton and David McCallum. 120 minutes. Colour. / This routine Under-the-Sea melodrama was produced by Ivan Tors, best known for such marine television series as Flipper. After tidal waves, underwater experts use a futuristic submarine to plant a series of earthquake-warning devices along a fault that encircles the world. The characters, dialogue and ...
Koch, Eric
(1919-2018) German-born author and television producer, in UK from 1935, in Canada from 1940, several of whose novels are of some sf interest. In The French Kiss: A Tongue in Cheek Political Fantasy (1969), set in a Near-Future Canada threatened – as usual – by separatism, a Reincarnated colleague of Napoleon muses on de Gaulle's similarity to the long-dead Emperor. The Leisure Riots: A Comic Novel (1973) suggests Satirically that, in 1980, the enforced leisure of the executive ...
Diabolik
Film (1967; vt Danger: Diabolik). Dino De Laurentiis/Marianne. Directed by Mario Bava. Written by Bava, Dino Maiuri, Adriano Baracco, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, based on fumetti by Luciana and Angela Giussani. Cast includes Adolfo Celi, John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli and Terry-Thomas. 105 minutes, cut to 88 minutes. Colour. / This Italian/French coproduction is one of Di Laurentiis's several attempts to film sf Comic strips, others being Barbarella (1967) and Flash Gordon ...
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 £1 annually to reflect the year. The announced shortlist and the subsequent winner ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...