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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 ...
Mission to Mars
Film (2000). Touchstone Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company). Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas and Graham Yost from a story by the two Thomases and Lowell Cannon. Cast includes Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell, Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise. 109 minutes. Colour. / Pseudo-mystical silliness – which owes not a little to Stanley Kubrick's ...
Gerrare, Wirt
Pseudonym of UK weapons expert, journalist and author William Oliver Greener (1862-1935) for most of his work, both fiction and nonfiction, though at least one thriller appeared under his real name. His first novel of genre interest, Rufin's Legacy: A Theosophical Romance (1892), features a Russian female spy who uses her astral body nefariously; Phantasms: Original Stories Illustrating Posthumous Personality and Character (coll 1895) assembles fantasies featuring ...
Jacobs, Bethany
(? - ) US educator and author whose Kindom Trilogy beginning with These Burning Stars (2024) is an ambitiously orthodox Space Opera whose primary Planetary Romance venue, a world oppressed by its clergy (see Religion), is detailedly unpacked. Aristocracy is rife, with dynastic implications hinted at. A ...
Albania
There has been some sf in Albanian since the late 1960s, but not until 1978 was the first sf book published there. By 1991 there had been about a dozen, of which five were by Thanas Qerama, a prolific writer and also an editor of juvenile science magazines; examples are Roboti i pabindur ["Disobedient Robot"] (coll 1981), Një javë në vitin 2044 ["One Week in the Year 2044"] (1982) and Misteri i tempullit të lashtë ["Mystery of the Old ...
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 ...