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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 ...
Oxenham, John
Pseudonym of UK lay figure in the Congregationalist Church, poet, editor and author William Arthur Dunkerley (1852-1941); he was co-founder, with Robert Barr of The Idler. Many of his works – some of them now-unread fantasies – served to advance his religious convictions. Two novels are of sf interest: ...
Kantner, Paul
(1941-2016) US musician, best known as one of the founders of Jefferson Airplane. During the 1970s, when his band was in temporary abeyance, Kantner recorded a sf concept album Blows Against the Empire (1970), released as by "Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship" (a usage that predated the formation of the group of that name by four years). The album concerns a group of freedom-fighters (they believe in "free minds, free bodies, free dope, ...
Swift, Morrison I
(1856-1946) US political thinker, agitator and author whose early anarchism, which brought him fame, decayed in his old age into antisemitic fascism; his novels come from his earlier years. He published three novels of some interest: A League of Justice; Or, Is It Right to Rob the Robbers? (1893) is set in a Near Future America bedevilled by inequality, but transformed into a just society by the eponymous league, which robs the rich and gives to the ...
Chapbook
In the early nineteenth century this term described a pamphlet on any of a wide range of subjects – from sermons to sensational tales, often illustrated with woodcuts – sold not through bookshops but by "chapmen", who hawked their wares. In the later nineteenth century, the term began to acquire a contrived antiquarian air, and was used to designate a small book or pamphlet produced for collectors. Although the fake antiquarianism attached to the term has since faded, chapbooks in ...
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 ...