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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 ...
Williams, Billy Dee
Working name of US actor and author William December Williams (1937- ), best known for playing Lando Calrissian in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) et cetera. He co-wrote with Rob MacGregor the Trent Calloway series beginning with OSI Net (1999), about American intelligence operatives gifted (or cursed) with ...
White, Caroline Earle
(1833-1916) US philanthropist, anti-vivisectionist and author; she was not involved in the women's suffrage movement, but has been considered of Feminist interests for her wide range of activities. She is of some sf interest for Love in the Tropics: A Romance of the South Seas (1890), which is set in an unknown Island in the Pacific (see Lost Worlds), where the shipwrecked protagonist ...
Block, Bob
(1921-2011) UK scriptwriter, mostly for BBC radio and television, from as early as 1954 with scripts for Life with the Lyons in both mediums; he created and scripted one series, Robert's Robots (1973); and has novelized some of his other scripts of genre interest, including more than one for Rentaghost (1976), as well as Galloping Galaxies! (1987), which adapts scripts from Galloping Galaxies! (1985), a spoof space series derivative ...
Rezillos, The
Scottish punk and post-punk band, notable for energetic, bright-coloured and abbreviated songs that give voice to a number of junk culture topoi, occasionally drawing on sf. "Flying Saucer Attack" and "2000AD", both on the group's debut album Can't Stand the Rezillos (1978), are characteristically effervescent and disposable. In 1980 they changed their name to "The Revillos", although they have since changed it back. Under each of these names (and occasionally, under both, as with ...
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 ...