David Langford
1 September 2010 Oh dear. People have come to expect Ansible on the first of the month, but that's not a fixed rule and (owing to serious distractions in recent weeks) the September issue is a long way from finished.. My disgracefully indolent plan is to wait for news from the World SF Convention that's about to start in Melbourne. • An Ansible correspondent whose web access depends on an elderly Blackberry told me that – presumably because of all the scanned images below – this page wouldn't load. Just as an experiment I invented a script that screens out graphics and merely shows their captions, if any: see here. Isn't PHP fun?
29 August 2010 Obsessive project of the last week: reconstructing (with volunteer assistance) the headwords list of the 1979 Encyclopedia of SF, in order to learn exactly what was cut for the second edition of 1993. • The indefatigable Marty Halpern continues to send links to online reviews of Is Anybody Out There?. I won't inflict them all on you, but am rather pleased that Lois Tilton of Locus – not a reviewer who dishes out indiscriminate praise– lists my story as Recommended. Whoopee!
28 August 2010 You may know Peter Weston's fannish autobiography With Stars in My Eyes, published in 2004 by NESFA Press and shortlisted for the Hugo. But have you seen the much rarer dustjacket (it was originally issued without one) created by the late lamented Dave Wood and enthusiastically endorsed by the author? The tiny Langford namecheck came as a surprise.
25 August 2010 To London, for the SFX party in Soho, celebrating 200 issues since the magazine launched in 1995. Inevitably it was the wettest day of the month, and I was thoroughly soaked by the time I got to Greek Street and collapsed into the Pillars of Hercules to dry off a bit. There, happily, I found the great Robert Rankin and his good lady, and enjoyed an actual audible conversation before moving on to the party, whose loud music put an end (at least for me) to all that kind of frivolity. The homeward journey was even wetter than the outward one. Desperate fun, you bet.
11 August 2010 Mike Ashley sends the Japanese translation of his Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, containing my loving pastiche "The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech":
6 August 2010 Unexpected late-afternoon delivery: a bottle of your actual French champagne from Oddbins. A prize, apparently, for a recent Inquisitor crossword in the Independent. Whoopee!
3 August 2010 Another month, another Ansible. • As noted within, SFX will soon (25 August) publish its 200th issue containing the 200th regular Langford column. Unfortunately, despite being a Me Completist, I'm missing two of these back numbers. The problem was that Future Publishing used to have no provision for automatic mailing of complimentary copies, so the editorial people would mendaciously list regulars like me as advertisers to be coddled with freebies. But after I'd failed for a year or so to place an ad, some hidden hand would take me off the list again, and I had to grovel anew. Thus issues 70 and 98 fell through the cracks: by the time I realized they'd gone missing, the office had no copies left. If anyone has spares, I'd be happy to arrange a swap from my own small store of duplicates (including number 1) and/or other amazing SFX trade goods like Doctor Who fridge magnets. • An incautious friend (Rob Hansen) wondered on a mailing list how easy it was to make animated GIF images. I'd never tried it, but dug out Serif Photo Plus and – after some struggle – modified this cheerful chappie from the masthead of Ansible 54. Oh dear. Maybe this is the kind of experiment one should conduct only once....
26 July 2010 Brother Jon has come and gone in a particularly brief encounter: about forty minutes gobbling pies in the pub before he had to take part in a Mekons performance elsewhere in Reading. Next comes a continental tour including a German festival which we fervently hope is better organized than this one. • We have also celebrated Hazel's birthday and – thrills! thrills! – my first successful completion of a tax return online. • A warning to correspondents: although I've been keeping up my cix.co.uk email address (est. 1993) for the sake of continuity, it seems increasingly likely that one day the host ISP (CIX) will fade away. See any recent Langford email for the preferred ansible.co.uk address. If you've mislaid it, the contact form should always reach me. But please don't rely on CIX for the long term. • Only in England.
18 July 2010 Not much has been appearing here owing to prevailing gloom, mainly owing to Hazel's father's continuing health problems. • Acting on principle traditionally goes unrewarded – but since I took offence at Amazon's bullying tactics, removed their links, and switched to the Book Depository, I've been getting significantly more in affiliate fees. Lots of thanks to those of you who sustain my life of dissipation through the Books Received page. • Speaking of books received, I very recently listed Mike Moorcock's massive tome Into the Media Web: Short non-fiction, 1956-2006 (Savoy 718pp, ed John Davey). Today the author himself sends an email disclaimer: "Some early embarrassments in there! I didn't see it until it appeared in print and probably wouldn't have chosen everything John chose. Also, I've had to employ a sturdy boy to carry it around and hold it for me on his back when I want to read it. Still, sturdy boys are easily acquired in the Marais. The least Savoy could have done for the older reader would have been to include a free wheelbarrow with every copy." • Here for light relief is the secret editorial formula of the Daily Mail.
9 July 2010 Today I drafted a column for SFX. Which is all very much part of the routine of the past 15 years, except for the magic of round numbers: this is my 200th column for the 200th issue of the magazine. Eeek. • Brother Jon sends details of the imminent Mekons European tour. We'll be seeing him for just about long enough for a beer before his Reading gig on 24 July:
7 July 2010 Not being a connoisseur of the Higher Bibliography, I tend not to spend my days worrying about crucial distinctions between different states of first editions. But here's an enquiry from sf book dealer Andy Richards, wanting to know the secrets of pages 151-152 in Neville Spearman's first edition of The Necronomicon (1978) edited by George Hay – in which I have a 25% interest. Investigation of my own file copies reveals that the full-page drawing of the Miskatonic University quadrangle on page 152 initially had a large chunk of caption missing, as can be seen here. This is evidently the first state; in later copies there's a tipped-in replacement page with the complete caption. I don't think publishers go to this kind of trouble any more.... • Here's yet another review of Is Anybody Out There? with a good word for my story, and indeed for all the others.
29 June 2010 News! News! I need a few more items of Ansible news by 1 July. Because it's too damned hot to make things up. • Marty Halpern sends another review of Is Anybody Out There? which highlights several stories including mine. Phew. • At last Adam Roberts draws a line under his epic Wheel of Time reading/reviewing stint.
25 June 2010 The latest mailing from Aussiecon 4 makes a change from big conventions' usual dull machine-franking: they've treated us foreigners to special stamps showing "Great Australian Railway Journeys". I am all impressed. (Here's the complete envelope.)
19 June 2010 You don't want a blow by blow, or step by step, report on the progress of my afflicted foot, which I am still trying to nurse back from the status of puny pyrrhus to sturdy spondee. Today I actually managed to struggle into ordinary shoes (rather than the terrible exploded relics – vagrants, for the use of – which were all I could get into) and go out to buy a newspaper. Hooray! But first I uploaded a new Cloud Chamber and the dread "A Short History of 'The Eye of Argon'" (from Banana Wings), because some of you are never satisfied.
16 June 2010 Now here's a surprise. I never expect to be nominated in the British Fantasy Awards, but somehow the "Ansible Link" column for Interzone has slipped into the Nonfiction shortlist. Wow! Here's the complete listing. Excuse me while I cavort a bit. • "Link" is a bimonthly digest of items from Ansible, so the general flavour of last year's output is suggested by these 2009 Ansible links prepared for the Aussiecon Hugo Voter Packet.
15 June 2010 General lack of activity since I've been suffering from mysterious agonies in one foot for over a week, and haven't felt much inclined to update this page. Our doctor has prescribed assorted pills, and there seems to be a slow improvement. • This cartoon may explain all too many film adaptations of beloved books. • An Oxford contemporary reports with delight that our old college refuses to let MPs hog all the limelight of expenses scandals.
5 June 2010 Marty Halpern, co-editor of the just-published anthology Is Anybody Out There?, is posting some of its stories for everyone to read. As a carefully calculated anticlimax after the joys of Pat "Langford, you dog" Cadigan and Jay Lake, the third selection is my "Graffiti in the Library of Babel". Speaking as a dispassionate sf critic, I can say that it's short.
3 June 2010 Once again Simon R. Green presents me with a copy of a Green novel in which I die horribly. Or rather, it "features the terrible if somewhat sentimental death of one Dom Langford. Hope you enjoy it." • Ansible 275 appeared on 1 June, and soon afterwards I received an urgent update: this month's BSFA London pub meeting is not on the fourth Wednesday (27 June) as usual, but on 30 June. There's always something.
27 May 2010 Today I'm gloating over my contributor's copy of that Fermi Paradox anthology Is Anybody Out There? ed. Nick Gevers & Marty Halpern. It appears on 1 June and has already been reviewed in the May Locus (by Gardner Dozois, who lists me under "there's also good stuff by ...") and here at Grasping for the Wind. That nice Mr Halpern is posting a few sample stories on his blog, where my "Graffiti in the Library of Babel" should appear next week. But to read the typo introduced by DAW Books into my closing paragraph, you'll have to buy the print edition.
24 May 2010 A kindly mention of Maps in a major US political blog (scroll down). • Remarkable things to do with sheep. • New Age terrorists develop homeopathic bomb. • Author sues US government for copyright infringement. • And I forgot to mention earlier that Adam Roberts has gone all deconstructionist on Wotix, or Book 9 of the Wheel of Time.
14 May 2010 Query from a researcher: who was the British MP who (apparently inspired by Daily Express outrage at the sexy bits of Norman Spinrad's serialized Bug Jack Barron) asked a question in Parliament about Arts Council support for New Worlds magazine? According to Mike Moorcock, "A Tory asked a question about us in the House of Commons – why was public money (a small Arts Council grant) being spent on such filth." Mike Ashley's Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 reports the question as "why the Arts Council was sponsoring filth." All that filth was a major barrier to enlightenment: I searched Hansard online for such terms as "filth" plus "Arts Council", unsuccessfully because the actual exchange includes no mention of filth. Here it is – with the initial attack coming from a Labour MP (R. C. Mitchell), soon afterwards backed up by a Tory (Paul Channon). Another of those sinister cross-party coalitions.
13 May 2010 A moment of extremely modest glory: my name appears in this week's Private Eye. Not, fortunately, as the butt of abusive satire but merely as contributor of the Stupid Letter of the Week, sent to me by First Great Western's infallible mailmerge system: "Dear <NAME>, With your journey less than 48 hours away we wanted to take time to remind you of your travel details. [...] From: <CUSTOM_1> To: <CUSTOM_2> Date: <CUSTOM_5> Departure time: <CUSTOM_3> ..." Don't worry: I had other sources of information and was able to collect my rail tickets without relying on the included reference number <CUSTOM_4>.
10 May 2010 Letters from dear old Brasenose College tend to be more or less veiled requests for money, thanks to a happy delusion that all old graduates are now immensely rich. This one was slightly more chilling: "You should have received a letter from the Principal recently about Brasenose's first ever programme for current students to telephone BNC alumni to share experiences of Brasenose and discuss the College's current plans. Unfortunately, our students were unable to reach you during the programme, which has now ended with the beginning of term." Bloody hell! It's bad enough being cold-called by dubious telcos and shifty double-glazers, without 500-year-old educational establishments joining in. I was saved by the usual deaf reluctance to reveal my unlisted phone number to anyone at all, however lofty their motives or irresistible their charm. ("I am sure you will be delighted to learn that over one third of the alumni with whom we spoke decided to make a gift to the Annual Fund, while many others are giving the matter further consideration.") One imagines the BNC Principal, or more likely the Junior Dean, breaking it to the new student intake: "Since many of you will probably end up working in call centres, some vocational experience is desirable. Hence this challenging vacation assignment ..."
8 May 2010 A general sense of post-election gloom prevails. • Still the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (third edition) chugs slowly onward. We now have an arrangement with Locus Online whereby we send public links to entries for the recently deceased, for inclusion in online death notices. Here's our own list of these. Another list in preparation will appeal for help with corrections to the EoSF contributor credits: software checking reveals that the second edition listed contributors whose initials appear on no entry, while a few entries are signed with initials not found in the contributor list. Some are easily fixed: JP turned out to be a typo from the rekeying of the first edition as a basis for the second, and should be JB (John Brosnan). Others remain mysterious: who is JCB, who wrote a couple of entries (including SEAQUEST DSV) found only in the 1995 CD-ROM edition? Can such historic data have been totally forgotten in a mere fifteen years? Oh yes. • Adam Roberts has recovered enough from his agonizing surfeit of Robert Jordan to struggle through book eight, while Thog looks on in awe.
30 April 2010 Heigh-ho, and up she rises! – the May Ansible has sneaked pre-emptively into existence. Which, as noted therein, is merely because my printers don't open on Saturday. But I impulsively dated it 31 April or Mercer's Day, and wonder how many sf fans will get the reference rather than sending solemn corrections of the obvious typo. • Adam Roberts, alas, has faltered at book eight of the Wheel of Time, marking this non-occasion with a little Robert Jordan pastiche that's uncannily reminiscent of my old friend's reaction to proofreading book five. Could they possibly be related?
25 April 2010 When Adam Roberts undertook to review Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in weekly instalments (one per bloated volume), and said after the first book "The whole series will be a doddle." ... I sensed that Hubris would before long get clobbered by Nemesis. Some weeks later Adam agreed (in private email) with this diagnosis, but nevertheless – older, wiser, wearier, red-eyed and intellectually ravaged – he's struggled on through books #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7. Thog is grateful for tasty pickings from the last two in particular. And still there's more to come at Punkadiddle!
15 April 2010 At last, in a time of gloom, clouds of volcanic ash and an impending general election, this cheerier news story: Chiropractors' libel case dropped against Simon Singh . • Speaking of elections, Ernest Bramah's forgotten sf novel The Secret of the League (1909; 1907 as What Might Have Been) reminds us how much has changed in British politics: "In other words, it was quite legitimate for A to declare that the policy of the party to which his opponent B belonged was a policy of murder, rapine, piracy, black-mail, highway robbery, extermination and indiscriminate bloodshed ..." What, no NHS death panels?
10 April 2010 I'm overwhelmed by today's flood of birthday greetings. (Cyberspace: 5,271,009. Snailmail: 2.) Again, thanks to everyone! I am trying hard to get to grips with the fact that I am now as old, sober and responsible as Martin Hoare. • Brian Stableford asks me to publicize the selling-off of his vast book collection. • Later: deathless verse received from Brother Jon and his family!
Happy Birthday dear brother far over the sea
Roughly 5 years ahead on life's tollway it seems
Stagger on without care
To the number you share
With the year of my birth and a can of heinz beans.
8 April 2010 Catching up after Easter is always a chore. See Ansible for the few news updates I managed during and since Eastercon. • It is, in a weird sort of way, a relief to have dropped off the Fanwriter Hugo shortlist (or rather, to have been pushed off by feisty young bloggers like Frederik Pohl). Thanks to all who, despite my relentless lack of campaigning, put Ansible on the ballot for Semiprozine. I shall continue not to campaign. • Farewell to Guy Kewney.
2 April 2010 Today I'm off to Eastercon, but have posted some bits and pieces for non-attendees to read while I'm away, including of course the April Ansible.
1 April 2010 More royalties! The Harry Potter book is still earning money, which seems moderately incredible. No, really: I promise I wrote this note after midday....
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Some people send photos of this sign ...
... but more prefer this one:
