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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 ...
Borodin, George
Pseudonym of Russian-born plastic surgeon and author George Milkomane (1903-1996), who lived in the UK from 1932 and took out British citizenship in 1938; one of his pseudonyms, George Alexis Bankoff, was for some time thought to be his real name, but he himself asserted the contrary. Other pseudonyms – he wrote about 120 books in all – include George Braddon, Peter Conway, Alec Redwood and – best known – George Sava, under which name he wrote The Healing Knife ...
Jennings, Humphrey
(1907-1950) UK documentary film maker and editor, a co-founder of Mass Observation in 1936; his thirty films have gained increasing renown since his early death from a fall in Greece while scouting locations for a new film. Of sf interest is his Hitler Wins Alternate History short film, The Silent Village (1943), which is shot in documentary style. Much of his energy in ...
Beebee, Chris
(? - ) UK author known exclusively for his Cipola sequence – comprising The Hub (1987) and The Main Event (1989) – which is set in the twenty-first century on Earth and in a Space Habitat. The world of the sequence is dominated by Computers, and trouble brews when the GRAIL programs go missing; the protagonist tries to cope. [JC]
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Film (1987). Cannon. Directed by Sidney J Furie. Written by Lawrence Kohner, Mark Rosenthal, based on a story by Reeve, Kohner. Cast includes Gene Hackman, Mariel Hemingway, Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve. 93 minutes. Colour. / Superman's death knell, at the box office anyway, was tolled by Cannon's attempt to get more mileage from his exploits after he had been jettisoned by Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Reeve agreed to play the part again ...
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 ...