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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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
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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 ...
Antiheroes
Although the name suggests a simple opposition to Heroes, antiheroes are not synonymous with Villains. They range from merely unsympathetic protagonists whose downfall or comeuppance provides satisfaction – typically at slick short story length – to figures of some stature and personal attraction who are dark complements of heroes. Satan is often viewed in genre terms as the antihero counterpart of God (see ...
Kidd, Virginia
(1921-2003) US literary agent, editor and author, married to James Blish 1947-1963, who began to publish professionally in the early 1950s, publishing at least one story, "On the Wall of the Lodge" (June 1962 Galaxy) as Virginia Blish with James Blish; her first solo sf story, "Kangaroo Court", did not appear until much later, in Orbit 1 (anth 1966) edited by Damon Knight. Among other ...
4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Film (2007). Twentieth Century Fox in association with Constantin Films and Marvel Studios presents a 1492 Entertainment/Bernd Eichinger production. Directed by Tim Story. Written by Don Payne and Mark Frost; story by John Turman and Frost, based on the Marvel Comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cast includes Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Laurence ...
Tangent, Patrick Quinn
Pseudonym of US author George Hamilton Phelps (1854-? ) US author of The New Columbia; Or, the Re-United States (1909) as by P Q Tangent, a somewhat coercive Utopia set in a Near Future where Canada has been assimilated into America, dissidents are deported, and a socialist government, rather harsher than its model in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...