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Robert 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.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continuously revised, edition was published online from 2011; a change of web host was announced as the launch of a fourth edition in 2021.
John Milo "Mike" Ford was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet.
In American science fiction of the 1950s and '60s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering to the study of paranormal or psychic phenomena, such as extrasensory perception, telepathy and psychokinesis. The term is a blend word of psi and the -onics from electronics. The word "psionics" began as, and always remained, a term of art within the science fiction community and—despite the promotional efforts of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.—it never achieved general currency, even among academic parapsychologists. In the years after the term was coined in 1951, it became increasingly evident that no scientific evidence supports the existence of "psionic" abilities.
Patricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.
Timescape is a 1980 science fiction novel by American writer Gregory Benford. It won the 1981 Nebula and 1980 British Science Fiction Award, and the 1981 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. It won the 1981 Ditmar Award for Best International Fiction. The novel was widely hailed by both critics of science fiction and mainstream literature for its fusion of detailed character development and interpersonal drama with more standard science fiction fare such as time travel and ecological issues.
Ace Books is a publisher of science fiction (SF) and fantasy books founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn. It began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns, and soon branched out into other genres, publishing its first science fiction title in 1953. This was successful, and science fiction titles outnumbered both mysteries and westerns within a few years. Other genres also made an appearance, including nonfiction, gothic novels, media tie-in novelizations, and romances. Ace became known for the tête-bêche binding format used for many of its early books, although it did not originate the format. Most of the early titles were published in this "Ace Double" format, and Ace continued to issue books in varied genres, bound tête-bêche, until 1973.
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.
David Geddes Hartwell was an American critic, publisher, and editor of thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels. He was best known for work with Signet, Pocket, and Tor Books publishers. He was also noted as an award-winning editor of anthologies. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes him as "perhaps the single most influential book editor of the past forty years in the American [science fiction] publishing world".
Marta Randall is 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.
Phyllis Eisenstein was an American author of science fiction and fantasy short stories as well as novels. Her work was nominated for both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
The hypothetical particles tachyons, defined through being faster than light, have inspired many occurrences in fiction. In general, tachyons are a standby mechanism upon which many science fiction authors rely to establish faster-than-light communication, with or without reference to causality issues, as well as a means to achieve faster-than-light travel. Science writer Sidney Perkowitz commented "that the very word "tachyon," because of its unusual Greek-origin spelling and engagingly catchy hard "ch" sound, lends a certain "science-ness" or "science coolness to fiction." Starting in the 1970s, tachyons were used in science-fiction to present a seemingly-plausible explanation for time travel and communication through time. Peter Nicholls, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, describes Gregory Benford's Timescape (1980) as the first work to use tachyons to this effect "with some care", where scientists send a message to the past trying to change history. Glen Cook's 1985 novel A Matter of Time features a much less stringently described "tachyon generator" to "transmit [both to the past and] to the far future". Uses of the concept for space travel appeared in association with "the Asgard, the benevolent alien race in the Stargate SG-1 television series (1997–2007)", and in the 2001 film K-Pax, which coined the term "tachyonic speeds" for "multiples of light speed". An "unabashed" use appeared already in 1969, where "Bob Shaw's The Palace of Eternity features such delights as a million-ton tachyonic spaceship travelling at 30,000 times the speed of light." In the Star Trek franchise, in addition to facilitating faster-than-light travel, tachyons have been mentioned "for varied purposes, including cloaking a spacecraft, detection" of such cloaking and overcoming defensive shields, which has been regarded as "technobabble" by Mashable contributor Keith Wagstaff: dialogue that implies a scientific explanation, using a term with a real scientific concept behind it, "but really doesn't mean much."
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.
Lisa Gracia Tuttle is an American-born science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. She has published more than a dozen novels, seven short story collections, and several non-fiction titles, including a reference book on feminism, Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986). She has also edited several anthologies and reviewed books for various publications. She has been living in the United Kingdom since 1981.
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
Authentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues under three editors: Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, and E.C. Tubb. The magazine was published by Hamilton and Co. in London and began in 1951 as a series of novels appearing every two weeks; by the summer it became a monthly magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine.
Timescape Books was a science fiction line from Pocket Books operating from 1981 to 1985. Pocket Books is an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
The Science Fiction Radio Show is an American radio show that aired between 1980 and 1983. It was syndicated nationally for the final two years..
Robert Lester Stallman was an American literary critic, English professor and science fiction writer, author of the Book of the Beast trilogy. He wrote under the name of Robert L. Stallman in his academic writings, and Robert Stallman for his fiction.
References
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , page 92.
