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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 ...
Miller, Chuck
Working name of US publisher and anthologist Charles Franklin Miller II (1952-2015), sometimes bylined Charles F Miller. For his publishing activities see Underwood-Miller Inc. For his works – including several nonfiction Anthologies of writings on Stephen King and one on Jack Vance, all edited in collaboration with his Underwood-Miller partner Tim ...
Defoe, Gideon
(1976- ) UK author whose very Young Adult Pirates! sequence beginning with The Pirates!: An Adventure with Scientists (2004), spoofishly but entertainingly engages an incompetent pirate band – whose banter shows the influence of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974) – in various adventures back and forth throughout the nineteenth century, as seen ...
Rosny aîné, J-H
Principal pseudonym of French-speaking Belgian author Joseph-Henri-HonoréBoëx (1856-1940), in the UK 1875-1884, subsequently in France. He initially signed this name simply J-H Rosny, without an indication of seniority ("aîné" meaning "elder"), and shared this form of the pseudonym with his younger brother Justin; some works published as by J-H Rosny during that period, none of them sf, are collaborative. After 1907, when the brothers separated, the name was divided, ...
Crane, Nathalia
(1913-1998) US poet, teacher and author, precociously active as a poet from childhood, beginning with the publication of her first collection, The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems (coll 1924 chap), which was much influenced by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); Time magazine referred to her at this time as "The Baby Browning of Brooklyn". After publishing some further work she enjoyed a long career as an academic and political activist. Samuel R ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...