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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 ...
Warren, Bill
Working name of William Bond Warren (1943-2016), sf fan and film buff, author with Allan Rothstein of the Recursive SF murder mystery Fandom Is a Way of Death (1984 chap), set in and distributed at the 1984 Worldcon in Los Angeles, and featuring many fan characters including Forrest J Ackerman. Warren worked with Walt Lee on the latter's monumental, ...
Parts: The Clonus Horror
Film (1979; vt Clonus). Clonus Associates. Directed by Robert S Fiveson. Produced by Fiveson. Written by Ron Smith, Bob Sullivan, Myrl A Schreibman from a story by Sullivan. Cast includes Paulette Breen, Eileen Dietz (Dana), Tim Donnelly, Peter Graves, David Hooks, Dick Sargent (Dr Jameson) and Keenan Wynn. 90 minutes. Colour. / The young man Richard Knight (Donnelly) becomes dissatisfied with his life in a scientific colony somewhere in a western US desert, and escapes the ...
Doroga k Zvezdam
Russian documentary film (1957; vt Road to the Stars). Leningrad Popular Science Film Studio. Directed by Pavel Klushantsev. Written by Boris Lyapunov and Vasili Solovyov. Cast includes Georgi Solovyov and other unidentified actors. 52 minutes. Colour. / This documentary begins with an extended look at the life of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (Solovyov), explaining how this visionary Scientist first devised ...
Innes, Michael
Pseudonym used by Scots author and academic J I M Stewart (1906-1994) for his many detective and thriller novels published from 1936 to 1986, often featuring series character John Appleby in various official roles from detective-inspector to Sir John Appleby, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, and onward through a long, active retirement. Though fantastical and donnishly whimsical, these tales normally keep sf devices at arm's length, as with the distant threat of ...
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 ...