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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 ...
Simpson, Robert
(? - ) US author whose fiction has solely been written as Ties to the Star Trek universe, beginning with "Allegro Ouroboros in D Minor" in The Lives of Dax (anth 1999) edited by Marco Palmieri, and including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission Gamma: Lesser Evil (2002). [JC]
Aylett, Steve
(1967- ) UK author who very quickly developed a reputation for his tone of voice, which could be described as gonzo, surreal, metacyberpunkish, riff-driven, surfer-noir; it is a voice which sometimes obscures the objects of his tales, which attack the objects of their Satire through vignettes, quotes and characters from the Pulp magazines and Comics of the previous century. He began ...
Alley Oop
US Comic strip, created and drawn by V T Hamlin from 5 December 1932 for Bonnet-Brown, a small firm which soon collapsed, then from 1933 for the NEA syndicate; Hamlin retired from the daily strip in 1968 and from the Sunday strip in 1973, when it was taken over by his assistant Dave Graue (1926-2001). Drawn in a style more comically exaggerated than usual in adventure strips, though with clear affection, Oop is a tough and likeable ...
Reeth, Allan
Pseudonym of UK author G H Davis (? -? ); as there is no further information on Davis, this name may also be pseudonymous, and Davis may well be female. The only novel Davis published as by Reeth is a feminist Utopia, Legions of the Dawn (1908), in which British and American women establish a matriarchal society in Africa (see Feminism; Women in SF). Women ...
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 ...