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.
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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 ...
Watson, Angus
(1972- ) UK author who initially wrote fantasy, primarily the Age of Iron sequence beginning with Age of Iron (2014). He is of some sf interest for his second sequence, the West of East series beginning with You Die When You Die (2017), set in an Alternate World America a millennium ago, where Magic works, though a band of lost Vikings takes refuge. Towards the end of ...
Turner, Gerry
(1921-1982) US portrait photographer and author of fiction for the Young Adult market, including one sf novel, Stranger from the Depths (1967). Here the seeming last survivor of an ancient amphibian civilization from the Hollow Earth is discovered by a party of young US high-schoolers and their mentor, a college professor. The lizard-like being awakens (see Sleeper Awakes) and ...
Mason, F Van Wyck
(1901-1978) US author, who sometimes gave his name variously as F V W Mason, Van Wyck Mason, Frank Van Wyck Mason and Frank W Mason, and who published as well under at least two pseudonyms, Geoffrey Coffin and Ward Weaver; in active service during World War One and World War Two. Though now best known as a writer of historical novels with an emphasis on romantic adventure plots, he was initially prolific in shorter forms, ...
Icons
A number of historical, fictional and mythical characters have acquired iconic status in sf. Most such figures from myth and Religion have their proper home in Fantasy, but nevertheless appear repeatedly in sf and Science Fantasy – not only Shaggy God Stories but subtler rationalizations or reworkings of legend. In this category are ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...