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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 ...
Brown, Timothy
(1961- ) US author whose first novel Polaris (2014) is a Near Future tale set in Death Valley (see California), an extreme environment which instantly evokes a sense that Climate Change may have deepened sufficiently to have created Ruined Earth conditions, and that the elderly protagonist of the tale, alone with a ...
Wesley, Mary
Pseudonym of UK author Mary Aline Siepmann (née Farmar) (1912-2002) whose first three novels were Young Adult tales somewhat removed from the acerbic, take-no-prisoners, erotically charged adult novels she published in later life, beginning with Jumping the Queue (1983) [these titles are not listed below]. The Sixth Seal (1969) describes the survival of its protagonists Underground during the ...
O'Leary, Con
(1888-1958) Irish-born author in whose sf novel, The Delicate Creature (1928), a woman is given a Drug that induces a range of Identity Transfer experiences, including life as a Mouse, and as her own betrayed husband. [JC]
Idler, The
UK general interest magazine, one of the first to appear following the enthusiastic reception of The Strand, but not a slavish imitation. It was founded by Robert Barr and William Dunkerley (better known as John Oxenham) with Jerome K Jerome as the initial editor. It ran from February 1892 to March 1911, monthly, missing just two months. Robert ...
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 ...