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Sunday 8 December 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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Jones, Neil
(? - ) UK editor of two Warhammer 40,000 Ties: Warhammer 40,000: Deathwing (anth 1990; exp 2001) with David Pringle and Warhammer: The Laughter of Dark Gods (anth 2002) with David Pringle. [JC]
Overpopulation
In 1798 the UK economist Thomas R Malthus (1766-1834) published his Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, arguing that a Utopian situation of peace and plenty would be impossible to achieve because the tendency of populations, in the absence of the checks of war, famine and plague, to increase exponentially would result in society's continually outgrowing its resources. In the second edition of 1803, replying to ...
Prometheus Award
An Award presented for sf which is at least nominally Libertarian or attempts to "examine the meaning of freedom". It was inaugurated by L Neil Smith in 1979 and relaunched by the newly formed Libertarian Futurist Society in 1982, since when the presentations have been annual. The trophy takes the form of a gold coin "representing free trade and free minds". Prometheus Hall of Fame awards are also ...
Brown, Alphonse
Working name of French author Joseph-Maxmilien-André Brown (1841-1902), whose first novel, La Conquête de l'air: 40 jours de navigation aérienne (1875; trans Brian Stableford as The Conquest of the Air: Forty Days of Aerial Navigation 2013) (see Transportation), was clearly modeled on the early novels of Jules Verne, and built upon the ...
Frankenstein 1970
Film (1958; vt Frankenstein 1975). Aubrey Schenck Productions/Allied Artists. Produced by Aubrey Schenck. Directed by Howard W Koch. Written by Richard Landau and George Worthing Yates from a story by Charles A Moses and Schenck loosely based on Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1811; rev 1831) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, not credited. Cast includes Charlotte Austin, Donald Barry, Tom Duggan, Boris ...
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 ...