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
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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 ...
Cardona Peña, Alfredo
(1917-1995) Costa Rican poet, essayist, journalist, academic and author who lived in Mexico from 1938, but who preserved ties with his native country throughout his life. Together with the Chilean Hugo Correa, he could be considered the Latin American version of Ray Bradbury. He began to study arts in San José, Costa Rica, and finished in El Salvador, where he also started working as a ...
Dibell, Ansen
Pseudonym of US author Nancy Dibble (1942-2006) whose sf sequence, the Strange and Fantastic History of the King of Kantmorie, comprises five Planetary Romances, though only the first three – Pursuit of the Screamer (1978), Circle, Crescent, Star (1981) and Summerfair (1982) – have appeared in their original language. For English readers, the outcome of the sequence will remain unclear, along ...
McKenna, Richard M
(1913-1964) US author who spent most of his adult career (from 1931 to 1953), not very happily, in the US Navy. After returning to civilian life, he took a BA in literature at the University of North Carolina. His stories intertwined Hard SF themes such as Space Flight and Time Travel with soft sciences, notably Psychology and cultural ...
Seymour, John
(1914-2004) UK farmer and author almost all of whose works, from the early 1950s until his death, are nonfiction discussing the disappearance of what he deemed to be a balanced world (see Ecology), and the prospects of achieving sustainability in the future (see Futures Studies). Of sf interest is Die Lerchen singen so schön ["The Larks They Sang Melodious"] (1982), portraying ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...