SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Mouton, Eugène
(1823-1902) French magistrate and author who usually wrote as by Mérinos [sheep in French], though his own name also appears on later title pages; he was of Creole birth, was raised in Guadeloupe, and in so far as he may be deemed West Indian may be the first West Indian sf author, preceding M P Shiel in this distinction. Of the stories assembled in Fantaisies (coll 1883), "L'historioscope" (trans Brian ...
Pratt, Fletcher
(1897-1956) US author and historian who began his career as an author and translator for Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories and its companions in the early 1930s; his first published story was "The Octopus Cycle" for Amazing in 1928 as with Irvin Lester (a Pratt pseudonym). While doing translations of German sf novels Pratt evolved what became a renowned method of extracting payment from the ...
Métal Hurlant
French Bedsheet-size, glossy colour Comic-strip sf magazine launched January 1975 by Bernard Farkas, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (1947- ) and illustrators Jean Giraud and Philippe Druillet; published by Les Humanöids Associées. Conceived as a high-quality showcase for the growing number of French sf artists, Métal Hurlant was an ...
Pursuit
Made-for-tv film (1972). ABC Circle/ABC TV. Directed by Michael Crichton. Written by Robert Dozier, based on Binary (1972) by Crichton writing as by John Lange. Cast includes Ben Gazzara, E G Marshall, Martin Sheen, William Windom and Joseph Wiseman. 72 minutes. Colour. / In this lively thriller, Crichton's directorial debut, an extremist politician prepares to use a nerve-gas chemical Weapon capable of ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...