David
LangfordDavid Langford
David Langford has won ever so many Hugo awards and has a whole site of his own at ansible.uk , with plenty of material that can be read for no charge. He will restrain himself from further self-promotion here. So far there are just six printed Langford books from Ansible Editions:
- All Good Things: The Last SFX Visions – Langford in SFX magazine, 2009-2016, plus extras
- The Apricot Files: The "Disinformation" Columns– computer magazine stuff of perhaps somewhat specialist interest, assembled as a test of Lulu POD production (Lulu page)
- Beachcombing and Other Oddments – fanzine articles, convention speeches and other offbeat material (Lulu page)
- Crosstalk: Interviews Conducted by David Langford – 15 interviews with SF/fantasy authors, 1976-2001 (Lulu page)
- Don't Try This at Home: Convention Reports (Lulu page)
- New Worlds Profiles 1952 to 1963 edited by Langford with all proceeds to TAFF (Lulu page)
The ongoing project to reissue the Langford backlist in ebook form through Ansible Editions has resulted in the following:
- All Good Things: The Last SFX Visions – Langford in SFX magazine, 2009-2016, plus extras
- Beachcombing and Other Oddments – fanzine articles, convention speeches and other offbeat material (as above)
- The Complete Critical Assembly – nonfiction, SF/fantasy review columns
- Crosstalk: Interviews Conducted by David Langford – 15 interviews with SF/fantasy authors, 1976-2001 (as above)
- Different Kinds of Darkness – short stories: straight SF, fantasy and horror
- Facts and Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions with Chris Morgan – weird and wonderful quotations with witty (or so we hope) commentary
- Guts: A Comedy of Manners with John Grant – a bowel-wrenching spoof of the horror genre
- He Do the Time Police in Different Voices – short stories: parody and pastiche
- The Leaky Establishment – a comic novel
- The Limbo Files – computer magazine columns of somewhat more general interest
- The SEX Column and Other Misprints – Langford in SFX magazine, 1995-2005
- Short Shrift: A Big Book of Little Reviews 1976-2017 – vast nonfiction compilation
- The Silence of the Langford – humorous and critical essays
- The Space Eater – a straight science fiction novel
- Starcombing – Langford in SFX magazine, 2005-2009; plus further reviews and critical essays 2000-2009
- Up Through an Empty House of Stars: Reviews and Essays 1980-2002 – major retrospective collection of Langford's criticism
To compensate for the slight but embarrassing overlap between The Silence of the Langford (which includes three stories), He Do the Time Police in Different Voices (which includes one of the three) and Different Kinds of Darkness (which includes the other two), all three of these collections have been expanded with additional material. The Limbo Files, Starcombing and Up Through an Empty House of Stars also contain several extra items not included in the print edition.
Langford at SF Gateway
The rights to all these titles reverted to me in April 2023. Although the SF Gateway pages are still in place as of September 2023, the purchase links no longer work. I am considering reissuing the Discworld quizbooks in ebook form, but the Harry Potter critique is long past its sell-by date and should, I think, be allowed to die of embarrassment.
- The End of Harry Potter? at Gollancz SF Gateway
- The Unseen University Challenge: Terry Pratchett's Discworld Quizbook at Gollancz SF Gateway
- The Wyrdest Link: Terry Pratchett's [Second] Discworld Quizbook at Gollancz SF Gateway
Langford Freebies
Wait, there's more! The following ebooks are available as free downloads from the TransAtlantic Fan Fund website, with no strings attached except a gentle hope that readers who enjoy them or find them useful will show their appreciation with a donation to TAFF.
- Ansible First Series 1979-1978 – the first 50 issues
- Ansible Second Series 1991-2000 – issues 51-161
- Ansible Second Series 2001-2010 – issues 162-281
- Ansible Second Series 2011-2020 – issues 282-401
- Don't Try This At Home: Selected Convention Reports – has the man no shame?
- The TransAtlantic Hearing Aid – 1980 TAFF trip report
- Work for Hire – essays written for genre reference books
As editor - New Worlds Profiles 1952 to 1963
- TAFF Trip Report Anthology
- Wrath of the Fanglord – favourite pieces by other hands published in Langford fanzines
Some Links
- David Langford in The Science Fiction Encyclopedia
- David Langford book covers in the SF Encyclopedia Picture Gallery
- David Langford in ISFDB
