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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 ...
Robotics
Term coined by Isaac Asimov in "Liar!" (May 1941 Astounding) to describe the then imaginary science and Technology of Robot design and manufacture, as governed by the Laws of Robotics. The word was generally adopted and has entered the English language. [DRL]
Sinclair, Upton
(1878-1968) US playwright and author known primarily for his work outside the sf field, particularly for his "muckraker" novels of social criticism, including The Jungle (25 February-4 November 1905 Appeal to Reason; rev 1906) and Oil! (1927), the latter filmed as There Will be Blood (2007); and for The Gnomobile: A Gnice Gnew Gnarrative with Gnonsense, but Gnothing Gnaughty (1936), a juvenile fantasy which was filmed by Disney as ...
Robinson, Patrick
(1940- ) UK journalist and author, in US for many years. He is of some sf interest for his Admiral Morgan sequence of Near Future Technothrillers beginning with Nimitz Class (1997). The tales are centred on the American navy and its institutional allies and foes, as espionage and terrorism threats to America, mostly originating in Iran and/or China, are thwarted time and again. The ...
Wrightson, Patricia
(1921-2010) Australian author, whose significant oeuvre of Young Adult fiction is mostly definable as fantasy [for extended entry on Patricia Wrightson see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], with tales like The Nargun and the Stars (1973) markedly innovative (from a perspective half a century on). They are particularly notable for their attempts unencroachingly to represent ...
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 ...