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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 ...
Geen, Emma
(? - ) UK author of a Young Adult sf novel, The Many Selves of Katherine North (2016), which is set mostly in not much modified Near Future Bristol, a futurity signalled by data-filled eyeglasses and the near disappearance of otters (in 2016 a resurgent species). The main innovation is the Invention of long-distance ...
Kingsmill, Hugh
Working name of UK author and anthologist Hugh Kingsmill Lunn (1889-1949), who spent part of World War One in a prison camp, and who remains best known for An Anthology of Invective and Abuse (anth 1929). The Dawn's Delay (coll 1924) contains "The End of the World", of interest for its vision of a solar system populated by various species (see End of the World), and "W.J.", about a ...
Rocketship X-M
Film (1950; vt Expedition Moon). Lippert. Produced, directed and written by Kurt Neumann. Cast includes Lloyd Bridges, John Emery and Osa Massen. 78 minutes. Black and white. / This cheap movie was hastily made to beat the more illustrious Destination Moon (1950) to the theatres. A Rocket on its way to the Moon is diverted by a storm of meteors and lands on ...
Looker
Film (1981). Ladd Co/Warner Bros. Directed by Michael Crichton. Written by Crichton. Cast includes James Coburn, Susan Dey, Albert Finney and Leigh Taylor-Young. 94 minutes cut to 90 minutes. Colour. / Looker was intended by Crichton as a comedy, but the studio wanted a suspense thriller, and the result falls confusingly between the two. Three models, after having undergone surgery to make them even more beautiful, are murdered, and the ...
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 ...