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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 ...
Neville, Kris
(1925-1980) US author – mostly of fiction – who worked for many years as a technical writer specializing in plastics technology, and through his connection with the Epoxylite Corporation co-authored several texts on epoxy resins. He began publishing sf with "The Hand from the Stars" (July 1949 Super Science Stories), and for several years was a prolific contributor to The ...
Judge Dredd
1. In Comics, Judge (Joe) Dredd is an ultra-tough, mean, ruthless, granite-jawed lawman of the future Mega-City One. The strip of which he is the Hero (or maybe Antihero) was created by Pat Mills, John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra (artist). It first appeared in 2000 AD #2 (5 March 1977), drawn by Mike McMahon, and more than 1,700 issues later continued to dominate that ...
Williams, David J
(1971- ) UK author whose Cyberpunk-flavoured Autumn Rain Trilogy – comprising The Mirrored Heavens (2008), The Burning Skies (2009) and The Machinery of Light (2010) – begins with the Near Future destruction of a Space Elevator and the assignment to protect America undertaken by two counterintelligence agents, who ...
Bird, William Henry Fleming
(1896-1971) UK art lecturer and author who published some magazine sf in the 1950s under his own name, and also as John Toucan and John Eagle. His debut story was "War Potential" (October 1952 Tales of Tomorrow) as by John Toucan, and the first under his own name was "Critical Age" (1953 Futuristic Science Stories #12). Later work was almost exclusively written for the firm of ...
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 ...