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 ...
Gammon, David
(1904-1996) UK author of two closely similar Lost Race novels, The Secret of the Sacred Lake (1947), set in a snake-infested jungle wilderness, and Against the Golden Gods (1947), set in the Australian outback. Both are designed for the Young Adult market; other titles by Gammon lack sf explanations. [JC]
Comstock, Sarah
(? -1960) US author of regional tales mostly set in South Dakota whose last novel, The Moon Is Made of Green Cheese (1929), is of sf interest for its portrait of an astronomer (see Astronomy) responsible for some controversial findings and who engages in discussions with a mentor. His friends describe this mentor as an imaginary being; the astronomer's own description, if taken literally, would define his mentor as an ...
Costello, Matthew J
(1948- ) US author, almost exclusively of fantasy and horror, under his own name, which is sometimes given as Matt Costello, and as by Chris Blaine and Shane Christopher; he began publishing fiction of genre interest with Sleep Tight (1987), a rather mild-mannered horror novel for Young Adult readers, and has continued in this vein prolifically. Of sf interest is the Time Warrior sequence beginning with ...
Busby, F M
(1921-2005) US communications engineer, long-time sf fan (from 1950) and author; co-editor with his wife Elinor Busby of the 1950s-1960s Fanzine Cry of the Nameless (see Cry), which won a Hugo award in 1960, producing some of this early work as by Renfrew Pemberton. He began publishing sf stories with "A Gun for Grandfather" for Future Science Fiction in Fall 1957 ...
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 ...