Brian Wilson Aldiss was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for occasional pseudonyms during the mid-1960s.
James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.
The New Wave was a science fiction (SF) movement in the 1960s and 1970s characterized by a high degree of experimentation in form and content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. New Wave writers often saw themselves as part of the modernist tradition in fiction, and the New Wave was conceived as a deliberate break from the traditions of pulp science fiction, which many of the writers involved considered irrelevant and unambitious. They thus emphasized stylistic experimentation and literary merit over the scientific accuracy or prediction of hard science fiction writers.
Robert "Bob" Shaw was a science fiction writer and fan from Northern Ireland, noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980. His short story "Light of Other Days" was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.
If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn.
Harry Max Harrison was an American science fiction author, known mostly for his character The Stainless Steel Rat and for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). The latter was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973). Long resident in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, Harrison was involved in the foundation of the Irish Science Fiction Association, and was, with Brian Aldiss, co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, members of the Eastercon convention have also been eligible to vote.
Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell, the editor of New Worlds, as a cost-saving measure. Carnell edited both magazines until Nova went out of business in early 1964. The titles were acquired by Roberts & Vinter, who hired Kyril Bonfiglioli to edit Science Fantasy; Bonfiglioli changed the title to Impulse in early 1966, but the new title led to confusion with the distributors and sales fell, though the magazine remained profitable. The title was changed again to SF Impulse for the last few issues. Science Fantasy ceased publication the following year, when Roberts & Vinter came under financial pressure after their printer went bankrupt.
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine that began in 1936 as a fanzine called Novae Terrae. John Carnell, who became Novae Terrae's editor in 1939, renamed it New Worlds that year. He was instrumental in turning it into a professional publication in 1946 and was the first editor of the new incarnation. It became the leading UK science fiction magazine; the period to 1960 has been described by science fiction historian Mike Ashley as the magazine's "Golden Age".
Charles Leonard Harness was an American science fiction writer.
Infinity Science Fiction was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Larry T. Shaw, and published by Royal Publications. The first issue, which appeared in November 1955, included Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", a story about a planet destroyed by a nova that turns out to have been the Star of Bethlehem; it won the Hugo Award for that year. Shaw obtained stories from some of the leading writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley, but the material was of variable quality. In 1958 Irwin Stein, the owner of Royal Publications, decided to shut down Infinity; the last issue was dated November 1958.
Bertil Mårtensson was a Swedish author of science fiction, crime fiction and fantasy and also an academic philosopher. He was assistant professor at Umeå University, where he was also chair of the department from 1988–93, and at Lund University.
Arthur Sellings was the pseudonym of Arthur Gordon Ley, an English scientist, book and art dealer, and science fiction author. In addition to Sellings he also wrote under the pen names Ray Luther and Martin Luther. He is best known for his well-crafted portraits of adaptability under stress, in stories noted for their humor, suspense and attention to plot and character. His posthumous novel Junk Day is considered his best work.
Dan Morgan was an English science fiction writer and a professional guitarist, mainly active as a writer from the early 1950s through the mid-1970s. In addition to his fiction, he wrote two manuals relating to his musical profession.
Soft science fiction, or soft SF, is a category of science fiction with two different definitions, defined in contrast to hard science fiction. It can refer to science fiction that explores the "soft" sciences, as opposed to hard science fiction, which explores the "hard" sciences. It can also refer to science fiction which prioritizes human emotions over the scientific accuracy or plausibility of hard science fiction.
Nebula Science Fiction was the first Scottish science fiction magazine. It was published from 1952 to 1959, and was edited by Peter Hamilton, a young Scot who was able to take advantage of spare capacity at his parents' printing company, Crownpoint, to launch the magazine. Because Hamilton could only print Nebula when Crownpoint had no other work, the schedule was initially erratic. In 1955 he moved the printing to a Dublin-based firm, and the schedule became a little more regular, with a steady monthly run beginning in 1958 that lasted into the following year. Nebula's circulation was international, with only a quarter of the sales in the United Kingdom; this led to disaster when South Africa and Australia imposed import controls on foreign periodicals at the end of the 1950s. Excise duties imposed in the UK added to Hamilton's financial burdens, and he was rapidly forced to close the magazine. The last issue was dated June 1959.
Take Back Plenty (1990), is a novel by British writer Colin Greenland, which won both major British science fiction awards, the 1990 British SF Association award and the 1991 Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as being a nominee for the 1992 Philip K. Dick Award for the best original paperback published that year in the United States.
Best SF: 1968 is the second on a series of annual anthologies of science fiction stories edited by Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss, first published in a British edition in January 1969 by Sphere Books. The first American edition was released later that year by Putnam, with a Berkley paperback following shortly thereafter. Severn House issued a British hardcover edition in 1977.
Nebula Award Stories Two is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1967, with a Science Fiction Book Club edition following in November 1969. The first British edition was published by Gollancz in 1967, under the variant title Nebula Award Stories 1967. Paperback editions followed from Pocket Books in the U.S. in September 1968, and Panther in the U.K. in 1970. The Panther edition bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories 2. The book was more recently reissued by Stealth Press in hardcover in September 2001. It has also been published in German.
