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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 ...
Wells, Jess
(1955- ) US author whose fiction has generally been nonfantastic; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Succubus" in Embracing the Dark (anth 1991) edited by Eric Garber. Her sf novel, AfterShocks (1992), is set in Near Future San Francisco (see California), where the effects of a devastating earthquake (see Disaster) are played out ...
Fantastic Four
Film (2005). Twentieth Century Fox/Constantin Film/Marvel Enterprises. Directed by Tim Story. Written by Mark Frost, Michael France, based on the Marvel Comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cast includes Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Ioan Gruffudd and Julian McMahon. 105 minutes. Colour. / While aboard a ...
Freedman, Nancy
(1920-2010) US actress and author whose sf novel, Joshua Son of None (1973), one of the earliest novels to deal with cloning (see Clones), depicts the intrigue surrounding the childhood and adolescence of Joshua Francis Kellogg, cloned in 1963 from the body of John F Kennedy. The Immortals (1976) is borderline sf. [JC]
Clark, William
(1916-1985) UK journalist for newspapers – diplomatic correspondent for the Observer 1950-1955 – and television; served as press secretary for Sir Anthony Eden, but resigned in protest at the invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis in 1956. His first novel of sf interest, Number 10 (1966), puts into a Near Future frame some of his feelings, but no details of the scandal; his second, Special Relationship (1968), pits ...
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 ...