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 ...
Darkman
Film (1990). Universal. Directed by Sam Raimi. Written by Chuck Pfarrer, Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, Joshua Goldin, from a story by Raimi. Cast includes Larry Drake, Colin Friels, Frances McDormand and Liam Neeson. 91 minutes. Colour. / In its violence and simple, over-the-top characterization this is essentially the film equivalent of a Comic book, an "origin of a Superhero" story of sadism and revenge. Darkman, ...
Gamboe, Scott
(1969- ) US author whose Avenger sequence, comprising The Killing Frost (2006) and New Dawn Rising (2009), is Military SF set within an interstellar Space Opera venue, where a human coalition, corrupted from within by politicians, comes close to war with an Alien counterpart hegemony; the hero of the tale breaks all the rules in order to gain ...
Sallis, James
(1944- ) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context, with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds). His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work limited his appeal ...
Conrad, Peter
(1948- ) Australian teacher and author, in UK since 1968, where he has taught English at Christ Church, Oxford since 1973. His best nonfiction focuses on music and film; his one novel of sf interest, Underworld (1992), focuses on the metaphysics of urban life in the context of a City located, as far as can be told, in the midst of an abstractly envisioned Ruined Earth. Baroque twists of plot, and ...
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. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...