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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 ...
White, Caroline Earle
(1833-1916) US philanthropist, anti-vivisectionist and author; she was not involved in the women's suffrage movement, but has been considered of Feminist interests for her wide range of activities. She is of some sf interest for Love in the Tropics: A Romance of the South Seas (1890), which is set in an unknown Island in the Pacific (see Lost Worlds), where the shipwrecked protagonist ...
Fury, The
Film (1978). Frank Yablans Presentations/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by John Farris, based on his The Fury (1976). Cast includes John Cassavetes, Kirk Douglas, Charles Durning, Amy Irving, Fiona Lewis and Andrew Stevens. 118 minutes. Colour. / After his success with Carrie (1976), it seems cynical of director De Palma to have made another film about destructive teenage ...
Mastin, John
(1865-1932) UK author, clergyman and science popularizer, author of three sf novels. The Stolen Planet (1906) features the picaresque adventures of two Earthmen who, after Earth has been shaken by a vast Disaster, undertake a Fantastic Voyage through the solar system and beyond, as narrated by Jervis Meredith, co-developer of an "aerostat" capable of Space Flight. Centuries ...
SF Megatext
Science fiction is written in a kind of code, a difficult vernacular learned through an apprenticeship. Its decoding depends importantly on access to a megatext – the huge body of established moves or reading protocols that the reader learns through immersion in many hundreds of sf short stories and novels (and, with significantly less sophistication, from movies, television episodes, and games). The sf megatext comprises a virtual encyclopedia and specialized dictionary. For a story to ...
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 ...