SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
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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 ...
Thwackius, Herman
Pseudonym of US author Jonas Clopper (? -? ), who may have been a clergyman; his Proto SF Satire, Fragments of the History of Bawlfredonia: Containing an Account of the Discovery and Settlement, of that Great Southern Continent: And of the Formation and Progress of the Bawlfredonian Commonwealth [for full subtitle see Checklist below] (1819), recounts at least two ...
Strange Days
Film (1995). Universal Pictures presents a Lightstorm Entertainment production. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. Cast includes Angela Bassett, Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore and Michael Wincott. 145 minutes. Colour. / In the last days of 1999, after Los Angeles (see California) has become a no man's land, a trafficker in bootleg recordings of first-person experiences is ...
Liang Qichao
(1873-1929) Chinese historian, author and politician intimately involved with the reform movement of China's late imperial era. A proponent of constitutional monarchy rather than outright revolution, he was inspired by the work of Edward Bellamy and the Japanese author Tetchō Suehiro to frame his ideas in Xin Zhongguo Weilai ji ["An Account of New China's Future"] (1902 Xin Xiaoshuo) ...
Blomkamp, Neill
(1979- ) South African-born Canadian filmmaker, who was making precocious computer-animated films in his teens in Johannesburg (in which capacity he worked with a young television producer named Sharlto Copley) before emigrating to Vancouver with his family at 17; he attended Vancouver Film School and made a series of impressive early sf short films while working for Canadian visual-effects and advertising companies. Of particular note were Tetra Vaal ...
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 ...