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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 ...
4X Game
Term used to describe a form of Videogame of which the archetypal example is Master of Orion (1993). The phrase was coined by the journalist and designer Alan Emrich in a preview of that game, as an acronym of sorts for "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate". This construction is in fact something of a misnomer; while 4X Games typically involve players in exploring unknown regions, expanding into them and exploiting ...
Clark, Phenderson Djèlí
Pseudonym of US author Dexter Gabriel (1971- ), who began publishing work of genre interest with "Shattering the Spear" in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly for 2011. His work is in general perhaps more usefully thought of as Fantastika rather than pure fantasy, as most of his tales press against and interrogate normal genre boundaries. The Ministry of Alchemy sequence, comprising A Dead Djinn in Cairo (19 May 2016 ...
Kellogg, Vernon
(1867-1937) US entomologist, biologist and author; initially a pacifist in World War One, he recorded that his shock at the brutal implications of the Social Darwinism promulgated by senior German officers he met forced a change of mind, as he recorded in Headquarters Nights [for subtitle see Checklist below] (1917) (see also Eugenics). These encounters may have inspired ...
Basile, Gloria Vitanza
(1929-2004) US author, usually of romantic thrillers, whose Global 2000 sequence beginning with Eye of the Eagle (1983) describes a Near Future nuclear World War Three which obliterates the Middle East; earlier volumes provide a convoluted back-story to explain the war, as well as carrying the plot forward, into a time when further conspiracies must be crushed. [JC]
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 ...