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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 ...
Millard, Joseph
(1908-1989) US author in several genres who began publishing sf with "The Crystal Invaders" for Thrilling Wonder Stories in January 1941, and was active in the field for a few years, a period which included the magazine release of his only novel, The Gods Hate Kansas (November 1941 Startling; rev 1964), a routine adventure involving manipulation of humans by Aliens. It was filmed, dreadfully, ...
Cox, Alex
(1954- ) UK filmmaker still best known for his first feature Repo Man (1984), for which he wrote the novelization Repo Man: Not Just a Job – It's an Adventure (1988); this segues from a hyperbolic mean-street tale whose young protagonist is recruited as a repo man, and begins almost unwittingly to uncover a conspiratorial underlife in America whose currents pull him in the direction of UFO ...
Carlock, Michaela
(? - ) US author whose sf novel, Planet Dreams (1998) depicts two contrasting futures, a polluted, violent Dystopia and a pastoral Utopia connected solely when the protagonists engage in lucid dreaming. Both worlds are depicted with some realism, though an element of wish fulfilment is necessary to believe in the second. [JC]
Norton, Andre
Initially the working name of US author Alice Mary Norton (1912-2005), but for most of her career her legal name. A librarian for two decades before turning to full-time writing, she was one of the few sf figures of any stature to enter the field via Children's SF, and, though much of her work is fully as adult in theme and difficulty as most general sf, she was for many years primarily marketed as a writer for children and the ...
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 ...