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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 ...
Porter, Henry
(1953- ) UK journalist and author, whose The Master of the Fallen Chairs (2005) is a Young Adult Timeslip tale set in a house which, riven by a temporal fault line, registers new deaths, whenever they occur, through the sequential toppling over of the thirteen eponymous chairs. [JC]
Boggon, Martyn
(1934-1997) UK author of some crime fiction and of The Inevitable Hour (1968) in which, after a nuclear Holocaust destroys Chicago and much of the rest of America, a group of survivors in a claustrophobic bomb shelter engage in Post-Holocaust activities which are ultimately criminous. [JC]
Philip, Alex J
(1879-1955) UK author of Rabbits: A Novel of Realism (1946), which recounts an Invasion by Aliens who treat humans as though they were rabbits, and hunt them for sport (see Games and Sport). [JC]
Copley, Frank Barkley
(1875-1941) US author – best known for his adulatory Frederick W Taylor: Father of Scientific Management (1923 2vols) – in whose The Impeachment of President Israels (1913) a Near Future Jewish US president is impeached for refusing on ethical grounds to make war on Germany, but is vindicated. [JC]
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 ...