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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 ...
Vandel, Jean-Gaston
Joint pseudonym of Belgian authors Jean Libert (1913-1995) and Gaston Vandenpanhuyse (1913-1981), best known for the nonfantastic Coplan FX-18 sequence of thrillers as by Paul Kenny. Their twenty sf novels under the ambitious Anticipations label, used by the publisher Fleuve Noir for a large number of titles in the 1950s, tend to place speculative renderings of various types of society – some technocratic, some more loosely constructed – into ...
Atom Squad
Juvenile tv series (1953-1954). NBC-TV. Produced by Larry White and Adrian Samish. Directed by Joe Behar. Written by Paul Monash. Cast includes Robert Courtleigh, Bob Hastings, Bram Nossen and Harrison Sheppard. 142 15-minute episodes. Black and white. / The Atom Squad is a top-secret organization protecting the USA from various Cold War-era threats involving radiation or Nuclear Energy, often as the result of sabotage, ...
Coleridge, Christabel
(1843-1921) UK author, grand-daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), whose works tend to advocate Christian sententiae; The Thought-Rope (1898) is a sentimental tale of Telepathy. [JC]
Gat, Dmitri V
(1936- ) US university librarian and author of a complex interstellar Dystopia, The Shepherd is my Lord (1971), in which a giant corporation, Galactic Enterprises, oppresses humans and Aliens alike over a vast compass; its attempts to claim-jump a hidden sector of space hiding an advanced race (the Shepherds) end, however, in failure. [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 ...