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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 ...
Cramps, The
A band combining rock'n'roll and punk, a sound they described as rockabilly voodoo, who inspired many subsequent bands (particularly those in the Psychobilly genre). Formed in 1976 by vocalist Lux Interior (1946-2009), real name Erick Lee Purkhiser, and guitarist Poison Ivy (1953- ), real name Kristy Marlana Wallace; this pair was the main creative force and ever-present until they disbanded in 2009, following Interior's death. Other key members included guitarist ...
High Treason
Film (1929). Gaumont. Directed by Maurice Elvey. Written by L'Estrange Fawcett, based on a play by Noel Pemberton-Billing. Cast includes James Carew, Basil Gill, Benita Hume and Jameson Thomas. 95 minutes, cut to 69 minutes. Black and white. / This forgotten curiosity, one of the earliest UK sound movies, was quite a big film in its day, when it was seen as a kind of English Metropolis (1926) – a comparison that does not for an instant ...
Doyle, Richard
(1948-2017) UK author whose Near Future Disaster tale, Deluge (1976), drowns London in time-honoured fashion, as does Flood (2002), although the two are different stories based around the identical premise of storms causing a tidal surge that wrecks the east coast and overwhelms the London Barrier. [JC/SH]
Hunt, Nick
(? - ) UK author, most of whose work has been nonfiction meditations on travel, though The Parakeeting of London: An Adventure in Gonzo Ornithology (2019) amusedly adds speculations about budgerigars to the Matter of London. Loss Soup and Other Stories (coll of linked stories 2022) comprises a set of tales about lost worlds and lost lives conveyed to its compiler through the eponymous soup, which is ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...