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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 ...
Wheeler, J Craig
(1943- ) US astronomer, academic and author whose The Krone Experiment (1986) begins as a very Near Future Technothriller but soon expands its narrative grasp as the threat to Earth turns out to be a Black Hole that threatens to devour the planet. The nonfiction Cosmic Catastrophes: Exploding Stars, Black Holes, and Mapping the Universe (2007) is ...
Jensen, Reidar
(1942- ) Norwegian journalist and author, regarded as an important voice of New Wave sf in the 1970s. Jensen's first published story, "Den siste natten i hele verden" ["The Last Night in All the World"] (1969), received the Norwegian first prize in a sf contest arranged by three Scandinavian newspapers: Dagbladet (Norway), Politiken (Denmark) and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden). "Forsidepiker smiler aldri to ganger" ["Cover Girls ...
Noll, Arthur Howard
(1855-1930) US author of In Quest of Aztec Treasure (1911) with Bourdon Wilson, a Lost World tale set in Mexico; he also wrote A Short History of Mexico (1890), and other studies of that land. [JC]
Bruce, Stewart E
(? - ) US author on political issues from a leftwing point of view; his Utopia, The World in 1931 (1921) recklessly – in hindsight – suggests that the outcome of the bitterness and injustices that World War One intensified would be a pacific socialist commonwealth. [JC]
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 ...