SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
Sponsor of the day: Handheld Press
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 ...
UFOs
A common item of Terminology, both inside and outside sf: UFO is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. In the first edition of this encyclopedia in 1979, the subject of ufology was discussed under the heading "Flying Saucers". The change of title reflects the fact that ufology itself has changed over subsequent decades, and may now be thought of almost as three separate disciplines or interpretations of the phenomenon, one of which (the extraterrestrial ...
Pereira, W D
(1921-2014) UK aviation engineer, advertising executive and author whose first books, beginning with Time of Departure (1956), concentrated on flying. He began writing sf with Aftermath 15 (1973), which depicts a Dystopian Post-Holocaust America whose inhabitants are rigidly stratified according to how much radiation they have absorbed. The projected sequels, «Aftermath 16» and ...
McCauley, Kirby
(1941-2014) US literary agent, influential fan and editor; he very early on represented several clients, including Stephen King and George R R Martin, who later became extremely successful; both have acknowledged his influence on their careers. Although his professional focus was always on fantasy and horror (see Horror in SF), McCauley's taste as an editor was catholic, beginning with the ...
Adlington, L J
(1970- ) UK author of Young Adult titles including the two Pelly D tales, The Diary of Pelly D (2005) and Cherry Heaven (2007). In the first volume, a young boy from City Five finds the buried diaries of Pelly D, which make up the body of the text, and explain how the sanitized Dystopian world of the novel's present has come into being through ethnic cleansing and other ...
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 ...