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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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
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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 ...
Magnason, Andri Snær
(1973- ) Icelandic playwright, poet and author of a children's fantasy, Sagan af bláa hnettinum ["The Story of the Blue Planet"] (1999), and of Lovestar (2002; trans Victoria Cribb as LoveStar 2012), a surreal sf tale set in an exaggerated Near Future world where every possible Information-Technology-based application is hugely more powerful than now, every ...
Volk, Gordon
(1885-?1962) UK author who also wrote as by Raymond Knotts, in active service during World War One; he specialized almost exclusively in crime adventures without fantastic elements, with the exception of The Isle of Men (1932), a Lost Race tale set on a South Pacific Island where a race of physically superior humans is discovered. [JC]
Lankford, J R
(? - ) US author whose first novel, The Crowning Circle (2001) was a thriller and whose second, The Jesus Thief (2003), depicts an attempt to Clone a second Jesus or Christ from DNA found in blood in the Shroud of Turin. As the outcome is uncertain, so is the tale's generic nature. [JC]
Automation
The idea that mechanical production processes might one day free mankind from the burden of labour is a common utopian dream, exemplified by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) and its modern counterpart, Mack Reynolds's Looking Backward from the Year 2000 (1973). But the dream has its nightmarish aspects, as hinted at in the manufacture and display of ...
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 ...