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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 ...
Easson, Robert
(1941- ) UK author living in the USA; his slim and eccentric sf story collection is The Bird; The Ghoul; and, In the Name of My Friend (coll 1968 chap). [JC/DRL]
Lacey, Burroughs
(? - ) US author of an sf Sex tale, The Sex Machine (1976: vt The Balling Machine 1982 as by Ed Rose), in which (as not uncommonly in sf) enhanced men and Androids are distinguished with difficulty. [JC]
Magee, Rufus
(1845-1929) US politician and author tentatively identified as having written The Battle of the Moy; Or, How Ireland Gained Her Independence 1892-1894 (1883), published anonymously in America and the UK. The novel depicts a Near Future European war, during the course of which Ireland gains her independence from Britain. The identification with Magee is based on bibliographical evidence from L W Currey. [JC]
Ableman, Paul
(1927-2006) UK author and playwright who remains best-known for his first, non-fantastic novel, I Hear Voices (1958), though his first work of sf interest – "The Prophet Mackenbee" for Lucifer in 1952, about an sf author who surrounds himself with disciples in an absurd world – came earlier. The Twilight of the Vilp (1969) is not so much sf proper as an informed and sophisticated playing with the conventions of the genre in a ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...