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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 ...
Terrornauts, The
Film (1967). Amicus Productions. Directed by Montgomery Tully. Written by John Brunner, based on the novel The Wailing Asteroid (1960) by Murray Leinster. Cast includes Charles Hawtrey, Patricia Hayes, Zena Marshall, Stanley Meadows and Simon Oates. 75 minutes. Colour. / The head of a project to use a radio telescope to listen for signs of intelligent life, Dr Joe Burke (Oates), is rewarded for his ...
Holt, Robert Lawrence
(1939- ) US author of Technothrillers whose Good Friday (1987), set in the Near Future, describes the Soviet invasion of Saudi Arabian oilfields on the sacred day of the title; in Peacemaker (1991) with Frank R Holt, an AI goes mental, almost causing a Star Wars Disaster. [JC]
Lanagan, Margo
(1960- ) Australian author whose career – her earlier work for children and Young Adults, was published only in Australia – seems to be divided into two distinct parts. Under her own name, and writing as Melanie Carter, Mandy McBride, Gilly Lockwood and Belinda Hayes, Lanagan early published a wide range of fiction in the 1990s, including Wildgame (1991), a Science Fantasy tale ...
Robinett, Stephen
(1941-2004) US author and lawyer who began publishing sf as Tak Hallus (apparently Persian for "pen name") with "Minitalent" in Analog for March 1969; most of his shorter work is assembled in Projections (coll 1979), where a sharp wit is allowed free and satirical play. Robinett's first novel, Mindwipe! (December 1969 Analog as by Tak Hallus; exp 1976) as by Steve Hahn, is unexceptional, but Stargate ...
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 ...