David Langford

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David Langford

David Rowland Langford (born April 10, 1953 in Newport , Wales ) is a British science fiction writer, editor and critic. He is best known as the editor of Newszine Ansible .

Life

After attending Newport High School , Langford studied physics from 1971 to 1974 at Brasenose College , Oxford , where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1974 and a master's degree in 1978 . He then worked from 1975 to 1980 at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston . It is believed that his novel The Leaky Establishment (1984), which deals with “misplaced” nuclear weapons, is based on his experiences during this period. He has been a freelance writer and editor since 1980.

His first SF story, Heatwave , appeared in the anthology New Writings in SF (27) , edited by Kenneth Bulmer , in 1975, after several contributions had previously appeared in the amateur magazine SFinx . His first novel was published in 1979. An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 is a "lost and found" manuscript with an allegedly authentic account of a William Robert Loosley encounter with UFOs in the 19th century, supplemented with apparently serious comments Langfords. This fictional story was received as a factual report in UFO literature, in particular it was adopted as a factual report in Whitley Strieber's novel Majestic along with a number of other "cases" in which allegedly people were abducted by aliens.

Another mystification that Langford was involved in was the Necronomicon published by George Hay in 1978 , actually a fictional occult work, an invention of HP Lovecraft that has since been picked up by numerous authors of horror literature . Hay, on the other hand, presents a real existing Necronomicon , allegedly an encrypted text from the pen of the Elizabethan occultist John Dee , complete with an English translation and a Langford report on the decryption, which was of course computer-assisted.

His penchant for satire and parody is also evident in the two novels co-authored with John Grant . So step into Earthdoom! all the usual catastrophes of science fiction at the same time: climate change, alien invasion, the impending impact of an antimatter comet - and on top of that , Hitler returns by time machine and clones himself immediately.

Langford's parodies were first collected in The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two (1988), He Do the Time Police in Different Voices , a more comprehensive collection of Langford's parodies and pastiches , appeared in 2003, and other short stories were collected in Different Kinds of Darkness (2004).

Above all, Langford is known and widely recognized (see below) as a fandom author in general and especially as the editor of the news fanzine Ansible , which has been published since 1979 - with an interruption between 1987 and 1991. The wit and the occasional malice in Langford's contributions are particularly valued , not only in Ansible , but also in the forerunner fanzine Twll-Ddu , which appeared from 1976 to 1983, and in the Ansible Link columns in Interzone , one since 1992 there appearing summary of news from Ansible , and his column in SFX (in No. 1–274), which appeared in 2005 as The SEX Column and Other Misprints and in 2017 as All Good Things: The Last SFX Visions . Langford's SF reviews also appeared in The Guardian (1994–1995) and The Sunday Telegraph (2011–2013).

Langford has also emerged as a non-fiction author, among others with Facts and Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1981), a book written together with Chris Morgan on thoroughly unsuccessful predictions, as well as with The Science in Science Fiction (1982, together with Peter Nicholls and Brian Stableford ), entitled Science in Science Fiction: Does Science Fiction Predict the Future? also appeared in German.

In 2003 Langford founded the small publisher Ansible E-ditions together with Christopher Priest .

Awards

Langford has received the Hugo Award 21 times as a fan writer and 6 times as the author of Ansible . He also received this award in 2001 in the short story category for Different Kinds of Darkness and in 2012 together with the other authors of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , Third Edition in the non-fiction category. In the Science Fiction Chronicle Readers Poll he was nominated 21 times for Ansible or as a fan writer and received 13 times.

Other awards:

bibliography

Novels
  • An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World 1871 (1979, as William Robert Loosley)
  • The Space Eater (1982)
  • The Leaky Establishment (1984)
  • Earthdoom! (1987, with John Grant )
  • Guts: A Comedy of Manners (2005, with John Grant)
Collections
  • The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two (1988)
  • Irrational Numbers (1994)
  • He Do the Time Police in Different Voices (2003)
  • Different Kinds of Darkness (2004)
  • The SEX Column and Other Misprints (2005)
  • All Good Things: The Last SFX Visions (2017)
Short stories
  • Heatwave (1975)
  • Takeover (1976)
  • The Thing from Inner Space (1976)
  • Accretion (1977)
    • German: Anlageung. In: Herbert W. Franke (Ed.): SF international II. Goldmann Science Fiction # 23388, 1981, ISBN 3-442-23388-7 .
  • At the Corner of the Eye (1977)
  • Grot the Barbarian (1977)
  • Connections (1978)
    • German: connecting lines. In: Herbert W. Franke (Ed.): SF international II. Goldmann Science Fiction # 23388, 1981, ISBN 3-442-23388-7 .
  • Sex Pirates of the Blood Asteroid (1979)
    • German: Lustpiraten on the small blood planet. In: Herbert W. Franke (Ed.): SF international III. Goldmann Science Fiction # 23412, 1982, ISBN 3-442-23412-3 .
  • Training (1979)
  • Imbalance (1979)
  • Cold Spell (1980)
  • The Chess Set (1980)
  • Thing at the End of Time (1980)
  • Law of Conservation (1980)
  • The Final Days (1981)
  • Sacrifice (1981)
  • Transcends All Wit (1981)
  • Lukewarm (1982)
  • Semolina (1982)
  • Under the Bedclothes (1982)
  • Answering Machine (1982)
  • Hearing Aid (1982)
  • 3.47 AM (1983)
  • Duel of Words (1983)
  • Too Good to Be (1983)
  • In the Place of Power (1984)
  • Lost Event Horizon (1984)
  • The Distressing Damsel (1984)
  • The Mad Gods' Omelette (1984)
  • The Thing in the Bedroom (1984)
  • Wetware (1984)
  • Cube Root (1985)
  • Jellyfish (1985)
  • Notes for a Newer Testament (1985)
  • Outbreak (1985)
  • In a Land of Sand and Ruin and Gold (1987)
  • When in Doubt, Plagiarize (1988)
  • Tales of the Black Scriveners (1988)
  • The Gutting (1988)
  • The Spawn of Non-Q (1988)
  • Xanthopsia (1988)
  • The Facts in the Case of Micky Valdon (1989)
    • English: The facts in the Micky Valdon case. In: Chris Morgan (Ed.): Schwarze Visionen 1994-00-00 ed.Droemer Knaur (Knaur Horror # 70009) 3-426-70009-3 1994.
  • The Motivation (1989)
  • A Surprisingly Common Omission (1990)
  • Ellipses (1990)
  • The Robots of Environment (1990)
  • Leaks (1991)
  • A Snapshot Album (1991)
  • Waiting for the Iron Age (1991)
  • Encounter of Another Kind (1991)
  • If Looks Could Kill (1992)
  • The Arts of the Enemy (1992)
  • Blossoms That Coil and Decay (1992)
  • The Lions in the Desert (1993)
  • Christmas Games (1993)
  • Deepnet (1994)
  • Serpent Eggs (1994)
  • Blood and Silence (1995)
  • The Net of Babel (1995)
  • The Spear of the Sun (1996)
  • Not Ours to See (1997)
  • The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech (1997)
  • The Case of Jack the Clipper or A Fimbulwinter's Tale (1997)
  • A Game of Consequences (1998)
  • As Strange a Maze as E'er Men Trod (1998)
  • Out of Space, Out of Time (1998)
  • The Case That Never Was (2001)
  • The Last Robot Story (2002)
  • Logrolling Ephesus (2003)
  • New Hope for the Dead (2005)
    • English: New Hope for the Dead. In: Hannes Riffel (Ed.): Pandora. Spring 2007. Shayol, 2007, ISBN 978-3-926126-69-6 .
  • Warez (2007)
  • The Cold Truth (2008)
  • Gigatech (2008)
  • Graffiti in the Library of Babel (2010)
  • The Pocklington Poltergeist (2011)
Non-fiction
  • Was in 2080: The Future of Military Technology (1979)
  • Facts and Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1981, with Chris Morgan)
  • The Science in Science Fiction (1982, with Peter Nicholls and Brian Stableford )
    • English: Science in Science Fiction: Does Science Fiction Predict the Future? Umschau, 1983, ISBN 3-524-69047-5 .
  • Micromania: The Whole Truth About Home Computers (1984, with Charles Platt )
  • The Transatlantic Hearing Aid (1985)
  • The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000-3000 (1985, with Brian Stableford)
  • Platen Stories (1987)
  • Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (1992)
  • The Silence of the Langford (1996)
  • Pieces of Langford (1998)
  • A Cosmic Cornucopia (1999, with Josh Kirby )
  • The Complete Critical Assembly (2002)
  • Up Through an Empty House of Stars (2003)
  • The End of Harry Potter? (2006)
  • The Limbo Files: Writing, Freelancing and the Amstrad PCW (2009)
  • Starcombing (2009)
  • Crosstalk: Interviews Conducted by David Langford (2015)
Discworld Quizbooks
  • 1 The Unseen University Challenge (1996)
    • Terry Pratchett's Discworld Quiz Book. Translated by Andreas Brandhorst. Goldmann # 44514, 2000, ISBN 3-442-44514-0 .
  • 2 The Wyrdest Link: A Terry Pratchett Discworld Quizbook (2002)
    • English: What is a troll striptease? : Terry Pratchett's New Discworld Quiz Book. Translated by Andreas Brandhorst. Goldmann # 46204, 2006, ISBN 3-442-46204-5 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Langford, Robert Turner: Fragments from the Necronomicon. In: George Hay (Ed.): The Necronomicon. Corgi Books, London 1980, ISBN 0-552-98093-5 , pp. 103-139
  2. ^ Langford: Deciphering John Dee's Manuscript. In: George Hay (Ed.): The Necronomicon. London 1980, pp. 81-102


personal data
SURNAME Langford, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langford, David Rowland (full name); Langford, Dave (alternative spelling); Loosley, William Robert (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British science fiction writer, editor and critic
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Newport , Wales