David Langford

30 June 2009 Although the weather gauge is stuck firmly at Too Bloody Hot, I've managed to deal with all my current deadline work and publish (a day early) the July Ansible. Another SFX column also went on line a day or two ago, as did some reviews. Now I'm planning to take a short break from the evil brain-eating Internet, so please don't expect quick replies to email. • I don't think brother Jon's name has previously been dropped in a Guardian obituary. Steve Wells was his flatmate in Leeds in the early 1980s: "I illustrated his 'ranting' poetry book and produced his record, did the covers for his fanzine etc. Very nice man but never did the washing up." Meanwhile Wikipedia has added new terrors to death -- although that story greatly exaggerates the importance of a solitary loon with a grudge. • Here's that nice Geoff Willmetts of SF Crowsnest reviewing Starcombing. I don't know where his statistic "85% material that was first seen in UK's 'SFX' magazine" comes from -- it's 71% of the contents list but, since SFX pieces have to be short, about 40% by word count . He explained: "I count chapters. Counting every word would mean transferring to a word processor or having the entire population of my town's fingers and toes to use as counting digits." I would gladly have deployed cutting-edge technology to count the words for him, and indeed I did, but to no avail. • The past tense in this sign outside a Reading pub (The Horn) conveys an elegiac sadness....

18 June 2009 As a G.K. Chesterton fan I suppose I should regard The Passion of Father Brown (scroll down) as major blasphemy. • More on science vs daft UK libel laws. • Lego Escher: Ascending and Descending, Balcony, Belvedere, Relativity, Waterfall. • Plutonium on open sale in London! (Well, up to a point ...)

17 June 2009 The Oxfam bookshop in central Reading has posters saying that the "highly regarded Science Fiction authors" Brian Stableford and I will be reading and talking there on 11 July (6pm-8pm), so it looks as though the event is going ahead. Admission by ticket, free from the shop -- which has also taken over from boring old Waterstone's as the official local outlet for (again free) paper copies of Ansible.

7 June 2009 In accordance with the recent debate on reviewing ethics, Adam Roberts finds himself unable to review Starcombing. But he fails so very nicely, and I'm grateful. • Speaking of ethics, I was kindly invited to join the Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics group site. "Ethics" here would seem to have the little-known meaning "positive reviews only". Good luck to them, but (no doubt because I am a miserable sod) I feel uncomfortable with that title. The Ethics Committee, the Moral Majority? My own reviews, I hope, manage to be reasonably ethical despite my failure to write them while wearing a bright red leotard with ETHICSMAN! blazoned across the chest. That would be so embarrassing. • Yesterday on Facebook, irritated by a new spate of postings along the lines of "XXX took the 'Which Star Trek/Star Wars/Doctor Who/Jane Austen/etc etc character are you?' quiz and found he/she was ...", I claimed to have completed the "Which woodlouse are you?" test. Certain people took this seriously and asked where they could find it. This is what Facebook does to the brain. • Reverting to the ethics of reviewing, there's a spinoff discussion at SF Signal. Ethical links: Jeff Vandermeer, Cheryl Morgan, Everything Is Nice, Asking the Wrong Questions.

2 June 2009 Even after hundreds of issues, there's still a certain high of excitement in finishing another Ansible and causing it to sweep the world like a very small swine-flu pandemic. But I always feel gloomy on the day after. Bear with me.

23 May 2009 Yesterday was Abigail Frost's funeral at the East London Crematorium. SF fans in attendance were Roz Kaveney (who spoke at the ceremony), Avedon Carol and Rob Hansen, Graham and Pat Charnock, Nick Lowe, and myself. Also, of course, family -- her Aunt Jill told us a lot about Abigail's life -- Old Labour comrades and a crafts journal editor who promises some published AJF articles for the memorial site. (Several people there had read and liked this, which was a relief.) I hadn't known or hadn't registered that Abigail's middle initial J stood for Jenny. • And now it's time for <plokta.con> Release 4.0.

20 May 2009 One final note about the new books: I have been gloating uncontrollably over stacks of authors' copies of Starcombing and The Limbo Files, both looking very spiffy, especially the hardbacks of the former. Then I had to stop gloating and start mailing out copies to Adam Roberts (Starcombing introduction) and others of the usual suspects.... • Andrew Porter forwarded a message titled "Zombie Banks", which proved to be something to do with international financial horrors. My first thought, though, was of Zombie M. Banks -- author of the Zombie Culture novels in which vast undead spacecraft (General Shambling Vehicles) lurch across the galaxy, filling the ether with slurred and insatiable transmissions of MINNNDS ... MINNNDS ... MINNNDS ... • Going to one of Martin Hoare's favourite real-ale pubs can be very like this.

14 May 2009 Maybe I didn't read Terry Pratchett's A Hat Full of Sky closely enough first time around. As students of Langfordiana may recall, my "Blit" story sequence deals with mind-destroying fractal images and has been alluded to in fiction by Greg Egan, Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross. Now in A Hat Full of Sky I notice that the final written ravings of a wizard whose mind is being destroyed include -- just three words from the incoherent end -- "blit!!!!!"

13 May 2009 Roz Kaveney tells me (and has since told the world via LiveJournal) that Abigail Frost's funeral will be at the East London Crematorium at noon on Friday 22 May. • At last I have steeled myself to book a room for <plokta.con> at Sunningdale Park, Berks, and hope to see some of you there.

12 May 2009 Thanks to Yvonne Rousseau for pointing out that the Amazon (US and UK) links to my new collection Starcombing are now working. If only HTML offered <SUBLIM> tags within which I could subtly enclose the message "Buy it buy it buy it!"

2 May 2009 Yesterday, Ansible 262 was published. Today I'm sad to learn from Roz Kaveney that Abigail Frost has died at the age of 57. She was largely responsible for this silly special issue (warning: contains many contemporary fan in-jokes) in 1994. • Later: I put together an Abigail memorial links page since Roz was so keen on the idea. Later still: this has since been updated several times with additional material and fanzine cover scans.

30 April 2009 I am the end of an era. The two collections I've been going on about recently are ... The Last Cosmos Books.

29 April 2009 Apologies to anyone who was expecting to see me knocking back free drinks at the Arthur C. Clarke Award presentation tonight. The cold has not entirely gone away, and I've been getting too many swine 'flu jokes in recent days.... • Meanwhile at Cosmos Books, we finalized a cover design (by Juha T. Lindroos) for Starcombing -- not long to be denied you.

27 April 2009 I've been busy again, but now I can relax with (as it turns out) a cold. • My first nonfiction collection of 2009 (Starcombing is still in the pipeline) is now available from both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Roll roll, roll up, all you connoisseurs of musty old Langford columns, and buy The Limbo Files! Warning: may contain ingredients. • Some links: Cassini photos of Saturn's rings and moons. The Art of Penguin Science Fiction. Feed the Head. Ballard inspires. Swine flu perspective.

13 April 2009 What did I do during the Easter Bank Holiday? Celebrated my birthday with pies for lunch at a favourite pub which happens to be next door to a barber's. Sent the new Langford collection Starcombing to Sean Wallace at Cosmos Books: 85 newly collected nonfiction pieces with an ... interesting ... introduction by Adam Roberts; more of this when it's available. Treated myself to a shoe-stretching device (because I find it increasingly difficult to buy off-the-peg shoes that actually fit) and was fascinated by the accompanying kit of plastic wens, bunions and buboes to customize the thing for one's very own vile deformity. Had my smallest ever Premium Bond win (£25). Attended bits of the Bradford Eastercon fan programme through the miracles of internet video streaming and found that -- exactly as though I'd been there in person -- I couldn't hear more than occasional scattered phrases through the general uproar. Tried to describe Ansible for the Clarkesworld Save the Semiprozine Hugo site; was tempted to quote one recent appreciator's phrase "infantile shitsheet" but decided not to stir him up again. Did tricky crosswords, went walking in the rain, delivered another Interzone column with the now-obligatory photo, started reading an allegedly comic fantasy for SFX review.... What dissipated holiday fun.

9 April 2009 Extensive tests at the Audiology Dept, Royal Berks Hospital. Maybe a new hearing aid, or aids, to follow. Maybe an improvement....

7 April 2009 Our visitors -- Bill and Mary Burns, in the UK to be fan guests of honour at Eastercon -- have come and gone, and there has been much catching-up with work neglected while having fun in pubs. That book review was duly delivered to SFX, with a vast sigh of relief. • Wildlife studies: there are now at least five black swans among the huge white flock on the Kennet & Avon Canal just down the road. Meanwhile, in our own back garden, we have observed the Suicide Dove! A couple of very inept collared doves are nest-building in the pear tree, or rather, carrying twigs up to a singularly unsuitable branch and watching in bafflement as they fall off again. Then one dove discovered treasure-trove by the shed: Hazel's box of recently gathered weeds and twigs. Leaning against the shed, unfortunately, is an old mirror ... leading to a cycle of (a) inspect twigs; (b) notice alien dove in mirror; (c) study rival intently from various angles; (d) attack and bounce off; (e) fly to shed roof to recover from vicious unprovoked blow; (f) return to twigs and repeat. I should have taken a video, I suppose, but instead we moved the box. No use: the Unforgivable Territorial Interloper now had priority over mere nest-building, and to prevent concussion Hazel had to put a sack over the mirror. • Gosh, here's a Langford namecheck in Dr Dobb's Journal.

6 April 2009 Happy new UK tax year!

3 April 2009 Pause for breath. Ansible 261 duly came out on 1 April, with only a trace of foolery, and then the late London news started to arrive. The sf lecture at the Royal Institution on 7 April could be added to the links page, but there was no URL for this alarming information sent by Erik Arthur of the legendary genre bookshop Fantasy Centre: "Be the first to know that Ted and Erik have decided that once our lease expires in June, we shall not renew it and Fantasy Centre will close down after nearly forty years of trading." (2 April) Oh dear. It's the end of an era, it really is. • I'm supposed to be writing a massive book review -- that is, a slim review of a massive book which I'm only halfway through -- so may be a bit slow replying to email over the next few days.

26 March 2009 A few on-line oddments that didn't make it to the Ansible links page but which I nevertheless liked: A Horror Retrospective: John Brosnan (1947-2005) • xkcd on Anathem, imposture and fetishes • Traditional joke structure revisited [last item of post] • The Holy (Terrorist) Hand Grenade of Antioch • Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added To Curriculum.

22 March 2009 I hope no one will be too horrified by my latest tweak to the Ansible site. For some time I've been thinking that the links page (dense with information and frequently updated) would be a much better "front page" than the traditional one here. When I floated this idea in Ansible nearly a year ago, no one objected -- actually, no one took the slightest notice -- so at last I have plucked up courage and done the deed. What do you think?

20 March 2009 It's that Hugo shortlist time of the year. Looks like a good ballot. Thanks to all who enjoyed my efforts enough to place me among the Fan Writer finalists again. No, I'm not bothered that Ansible has at last slipped off the Semiprozine list -- fiddling it into that category started as hardly more than a joke (though with the serious intent of removing it from competition in Best Fanzine) and led to major bogglement when in 2005 it actually won. The editor of Interzone is probably still sticking pins into a small wax image of D. Langford. • I wish I could make it to Anticipation in Montréal to lose with appropriate grace, but it doesn't seem feasible. You don't want to hear what the last several months of UK bank rate cuts have done to my modest savings income. Neither, to be frank, do I.

17 March 2009 The Aged P. was let out of hospital yesterday afternoon, and Hazel (after a weekend return to Reading) is again looking after him in Wheatley. • I finished, more or less, the Starcombing index and layout. While I was still brutally oppressing the poor widows and orphans, there came a pleasant surprise when an sf author of some note -- who actually reads this page -- offered to contribute an introduction. Gosh! • Is my hearing getting worse, I wonder, or was last night's Reading SF Group meeting in an acoustically impossible pub? The bloody awful music seemed carefully tuned to hearing-aid-jamming frequencies.... • Home Alone, part 5,271,009: attack of the killer teapot! The handle suddenly broke off while I was pouring, barefoot in a dressing-gown: just managed to leap back from the scalding flood. Whatever next? Oh yes, the VAT return.

12 March 2009 Another gap. My father-in-law has been worryingly ill: Hazel went to stay with and look after him, and soon had to arrange a transfer by ambulance into hospital. The problem proved to be pneumonia. Now, at last, thanks to a heavy and continuing input of antibiotics, he seems to be on the mend. • To take my mind off all this while alone in the house (how does this microwave thing work, exactly?), I've been obsessively indexing a fat new collection of my SF essays, reviews and columns, tentatively titled Starcombing and -- I hope -- to be published as usual by Cosmos Books. Look on my works, ye mighty, because I need the royalties. • My mother, though in excellent health, always gets a bit upset by official-looking letters addressed to my father (who died in 2001). The latest to cause maternal alarm is headed, in bold type, "Are you considering your exit strategies ...?"

3 March 2009 After getting a decent night's sleep at last, I pulled myself together and finished Ansible 260 yesterday --with a little supplement about the rehousing/relinking of that deleted Glasgow archive (see 27 February below). • It's Square Root Day! With Pi Day to follow, but only for Americans. • Martin Hoare wins the Silver Onion of Reading.

28 February 2009 In brief: bad night, feeling shitty, not coming to Picocon after all. I don't suppose anyone was banking on it.

27 February 2009 It had to happen some day. The plug has been pulled on the UK SF Fandom Archive at Glasgow University, set up by Naveed Khan in the early 1990s and for many years the host of Ansible (long since moved), Bridget Wilkinson's Fans Across the World News (now apparently homeless), Rob Hansen's history of UK fandom (Then, which Rob is letting me host here at ansible.co.uk for the time being), the 1993 SF Encyclopedia and 1997 Fantasy Encyclopedia addenda (which I have hastily reinstated here and here), and various further oddments including The Eye of Argon (long mirrored here at ansible.co.uk). When time permits I'll see what else seems worth saving from the wreckage. • Picocon tomorrow is still a possibility for me ... if the weather doesn't turn nasty.

26 February 2009 A couple of updates. First: the traditional Langford email address, ansible [at] cix co uk, has been around for 16 years but may not continue indefinitely. No rush, but could correspondents please start using drl [at] ansible co uk? Yes, I've updated the contact page. • Second: after mighty wrestling with the Irish PLR paperwork (see 20 February below), I had a friendly email from their office wondering why I hadn't simply signed the form allowing my book details to be effortlessly transferred from the UK PLR system? Because, in their infinite wisdom, the UK PLR lot sent this form to everyone who received a paper statement this year but saved electrons by not telling those of us who read our statements on line. Here's the relevant UK PLR page, with a downloadable form which I hope will save some of my visitors a lot of work. Too late for me. Grumble, grumble. • It's been a long reclusive winter: I'm tempted to visit London for Picocon this Saturday, if only to swill cheap beer and bask in the golden voice of Pat Cadigan saying "You dog." We shall see.

24 February 2009 This review by Adam Roberts made me laugh. After which I looked at his 2008 archive and found this one. Gosh!

20 February 2009 So far it's been a hard-working but not apparently very productive month. Many headaches. Eye test booked, with much fear and trembling at the likely costs. No change detected; new glasses not needed; general sighs of relief.... • Maura McHugh points out that Ireland has introduced a PLR scheme (although they call it Public Lending Remuneration rather than any effete nonsense about authors having Rights), and that British and other EU authors are also eligible. Good for Ireland! Herewith links to the information leaflet and application forms -- the latter being an interactive PDF which, on my system at least, allows only one title to be entered in the all-important "Section F -- Book Details" page. • It's bright and sunny today, but earlier in the month, while I was finishing Ansible 259, the view from my office window looked like this.

12 February 2009 Sam Jordison at the Guardian continues his long trawl through the Hugo-winning novels -- this time, The Man in the High Castle.When I put on my pedant's hat to add an explanatory comment about why the grasshopper lies heavy, the reaction was slightly boggling (scroll down from above link). Me, like royalty? Gorblimey.

29 January 2009 The Department of Bizarre Coincidences struck again yesterday. With the aid of home-made software I added permalinks to what was intended to be the complete run of Ansible back issues, so that every story has its own URL and can be directly linked to. What I didn't immediately realize was that this broke the "As Others See Us" random-dip script. Naturally yesterday was also the day chosen by the Guardian to link to Ansible and this very script, which was embarrassingly serving up relevant extracts from only three or four issues that somehow escaped the great permalink reform. Now fixed, but oh dear! Still, Murphy's Law cuts both ways: if I hadn't missed those few documents, the script would have stuck at "Loading" and never shown anything at all....

24 January 2009 After the US presidential inauguration, I tried some of the beer that Martin Hoare gave us for Christmas and was able to write on Facebook: "Bush was drunk today. I have absolute proof ..." (The Bush brand of Belgian beer is very strong and very nice. Down the hatch, and into the sewers of history!) • Meanwhile, my little brother is a megastar in that fearful local rag the South Wales Argus! "They got a lot of things wrong," grumbled our mother, who nevertheless believes everything she reads in the infinitely more ghastly Daily Express.

19 January 2009 Charlie Stross has mentioned Earthdoom in his on-line diary comments, leading to a couple of how-to-buy-it enquiries. My page on this novel has links to the 2003 BeWrite editions, paperback and ebook. • In the post: the March issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with my "Curiosities" piece on Colin Kapp's Transfinite Man (aka The Dark Mind).

18 January 2009 What have I been doing for the last two weeks? Er um well. There must have been something.... A book review or two, a column for SFX. Some time wasted, in a fun sort of way, in fulfilling a New Year Resolution to complete the difficult "Track 8: Hard" of Bloons 3 and then swear off this terrible thing forever. More time wasted, probably, scanning stuff for an archive of my old fanzine Twll-Ddu. This is avowedly incomplete owing to a high incidence of embarrassment and possible libel (those were the days), but almost all the artwork is now on line. Meanwhile, there was also a certain amount of fiddling with software. Another New-Year-resolution project which I hope won't be a further waste of time was to get the hang of creating Windows .CHM help files, since the traditional .HLP format used for all past Ansible Information Windows software is no longer supported in Vista. After a few days of obsessive effort, I smugly report success. Look on my works, ye mighty ...

3 January 2009 "Ansible 258 -- An Apology. We are very sorry about Ansible 258." No, no, that's an old Private Eye gag. I thought I'd finished sending out all paper and electronic copies of Ansible by mid-evening yesterday, but the email version got stuck on the list server overnight and I didn't prise it loose until this morning. The Plain People of Fandom: Who cares? Myself: You'd be surprised what some people complain about.

2 January 2009 Once again, the hand of fate intervenes in the production of Ansible. I took the masters of this month's issue to Reading town centre, intending to get copies run off at the usual small print shop -- which was closed for the holidays. Time to investigate our recently opened branch of Kinko's, where the chap behind the counter took a worryingly long time to calculate that my modest order would cost more than three times as much as usual. Blimey! Grumpily I went home to coax copies out of my poor overworked laser printer instead; and found email from Gordon Van Gelder confirming it was OK to publish his shock F&SF news, hitherto revealed only in confidence. So I tore up the master sheets and started re-editing....

Archive of older entries
2008 • 2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003 • 2002 • 2001

Starcombing
The Limbo Files
The SEX Column
Different Kinds of Darkness
The Leaky Establishment

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Langford Writing: Free Reads Here
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Contact David Langford

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Langford Bibliography
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Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) updates and corrections
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) updates and corrections
The TransAtlantic Fan Fund
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Amazon Reviews (also in limbo)

About David Langford
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since July 2004

Selected Weblogs
Bad Science (Ben Goldacre)
BoingBoing
Hooting Yard (Frank Key)
Making Light (the Nielsen Haydens)
Punkadiddle (Adam Roberts)
The Sideshow (Avedon Carol)

Past Entries from This Page
2008 • 2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003 • 2002 • 2001

Comic Relief
Dilbert • Wondermark • xkcd

Family Links
Jon Langford on MySpace
Jon Langford: Art and Music
Jon's Paintings
[Jon] The Mekons
[Jon] Waco Brothers fan site
Cousin Susan, Dog Fancier

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