David Langford | |
|---|---|
 David Langford | |
| Born | David Rowland Langford (1953-04-10)10 April 1953 (age 71) Newport, Wales, United Kingdom |
| Occupation(s) | Author, editor, critic |
| Relatives | Jon Langford (brother) |
David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953)[1] is a British author, editor, andcritic, largely active within thescience fiction field. He publishes thescience-fiction fanzine andnewsletterAnsible and holds the all-time record for mostHugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.[2]
David Langford was born and grew up inNewport, Wales, before studying for a degree inPhysics atBrasenose College, Oxford,[3] where he first became involved inscience fiction fandom. Langford is married to Hazel and is the older brother of the musician and artistJon Langford.
His first job was as a weaponsphysicist at theAtomic Weapons Research Establishment atAldermaston,Berkshire from 1975 to 1980.[3] In 1985 he set up a "tiny and informally run software company" with science fiction writerChristopher Priest, called Ansible Information after Langford's news-sheet. The company has ceased trading.[4]
Langford has worn ahearing aid since childhood,[5] and increasing hearing difficulties have reduced Langford's participation in some fan activities. His own jocular attitude towards the matter led to a 2003chapbook anthology of his work being titledLet's Hear It for the Deaf Man.[6]
As a writer of fiction, Langford is noted for hisparodies. A collection of short stories, parodying variousscience fiction,fantasy fiction anddetective story writers, has been published asHe Do the Time Police in Different Voices (2003), incorporating the earlier and much shorter 1988 parody collectionThe Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two.[1] Two novels, parodyingdisaster novels andhorror, respectively, areEarthdoom![7] andGuts,[8] both co-written withJohn Grant.
His noveletteAn Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871, published in 1979, is an account of aUFO encounter, as experienced by aVictorian; in itsframing story Langford claims to have found the manuscript in an old desk (the story's narrator, William Robert Loosley, is a genuine ancestor of Langford's wife) and he analyses the story from a modern perspective, highlighting apparent descriptions ofnuclear physics andquantum mechanics in Loosley's record.[9] This has led someUFOlogists to believe the story is genuine, including the US authorWhitley Strieber, who referred to the 1871 incident in his novelMajestic.[1] Langford wrote the story as a spoof at the suggestion of his publisher[9] and says that since publication he has always admitted the story to be fictional when asked — but, as he notes, "Journalists usually didn't ask."[10]
Langford also had one serious science fiction novel published in 1982,The Space Eater.[11] The 1984 novelThe Leaky Establishment satirises the author's experiences at Aldermaston.[12] His 2004 collectionDifferent Kinds of Darkness is a compilation of 36 of his shorter, non-parodic science fiction pieces, the title story of which won theHugo Award for Best Short Story in 2001.[13]
A number of Langford's stories are set in afuture containing images, colloquially called "basilisks", whichcrash the human mind by triggering thoughts that the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking.[14][15] The first of these stories was "BLIT" (Interzone, 1988); others include "What Happened at Cambridge IV" (Digital Dreams, 1990); "comp.basilisk FAQ",[16] and theHugo-winning[17] "Different Kinds of Darkness" (F&SF, 2000).
The idea has appeared elsewhere; in one of his novels,Ken MacLeod has characters explicitly mention (and worry about encountering) the "Langford Visual Hack".[18] Similar references, also mentioning Langford by name, feature in works byGreg Egan[18] andCharles Stross. The eponymousSnow Crash ofNeal Stephenson's novel is a combination mental/computer virus capable of infecting the minds ofhackers via theirvisual cortex. The idea also appears inBlindsight byPeter Watts where a particular combination of right angles is a harmful image tovampires. The roleplaying gameEclipse Phase has so-called "Basilisk hacks", sensory or linguistic attacks on cognitive processes. The concept of a "cognitohazard", largely identical to Langford's basilisks, is sometimes used in the fictional universe of theSCP Foundation.
The image's name comes from thebasilisk, a legendary reptile said to have the power to cause death with a single glance.
| Editor | David Langford |
|---|---|
| Categories | Science fiction related |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | August 1979 |
| Company | Ansible Information |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Website | http://news.ansible.co.uk/ |
| ISSN | 0265-9816 |
Langford has won numerousHugo Awards[19] for his activities as a fan journalist on his freenewsletterAnsible, which he has described as "The SFPrivate Eye".[20] The name is taken fromUrsula K. Le Guin'sscience-fictional communication device. The newsletter first appeared in August 1979.[21] Fifty issues were published by 1987, when it entered a hiatus. Since resuming publication in 1991,Ansible has appeared monthly (with occasional extra issues given "half" numbers, e.g.Ansible 531⁄2) as a two-sided A4 sheet and latterly also online. A digest has appeared as the "Ansible Link" column inInterzone since issue 62, August 1992. The complete archive ofAnsible is available at Langford's personal website.Ansible issue 300 was published on 2 July 2012.[22]
Ansible has for many years advertised that paper copies are available for various unlikely items[23] such as "SAE, Fwai-chi shags or Rhune Books of Deeds".[24] In 1996,Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: "Tell me what I can send in exchange forAnsible. In Oregon we grow many large fir trees; also we have fish."[25]
Langford wrote the science fiction and fantasy book review column forWhite Dwarf from 1983 to 1988, continuing in other Britishrole-playing game magazines until 1991; the columns are collected asThe Complete Critical Assembly (2001). He has also written a regular column for theSFX magazine, featuring in every issue from its launch in 1995 to #274 dated July 2016.[26] A tenth-anniversary collection of these columns appeared in 2005 asThe SEX Column and other misprints; this was shortlisted for a 2006Hugo Award for Best Related Book. FurtherSFX columns are collected inStarcombing: columns, essays, reviews and more (2009), which also includes much other material written since 2000.
David Langford has also written columns for several computer magazines, notably8000 Plus (later renamedPCW Plus), which was devoted to theAmstrad PCW word processor. This column ran, though not continuously, from the first issue in October 1986 to the last, dated Christmas 1996; it was revived in the small-press magazinePCW Today from 1997 to 2002, and all the columns are collected asThe Limbo Files (2009). Langford's 1985–1988 "The Disinformation Column" forApricot File was aboutApricot Computers systems; these columns are collected asThe Apricot Files (2007).
A collection of nonfiction and humorous work,Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man, was published in 1992 byNESFA Press. This was incorporated into a follow-up collection, consisting of 47 nonfiction pieces and three short stories, and published asThe Silence of the Langford in 1996.Up Through an Empty House of Stars (2003) is a further collection of one hundred reviews and essays.
Much of Langford's early book-length publication was futurological in nature.War in 2080: The Future of Military Technology, published in 1979, andThe Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000-3000 (1985), jointly written with fellow science fiction authorBrian Stableford, are two examples. Both these authors also worked withPeter Nicholls onThe Science in Science Fiction (1982). Within the broader field of popular non-fiction, Langford co-wroteFacts and Fallacies: a Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1984) with Chris Morgan.
Langford assisted in producing the second edition ofThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) and contributed some 80,000 words of articles toThe Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997). He is one of the four chief editors of the third, online edition ofThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (launched October 2011), and shared this reference work's 2012Hugo Award for Best Related Work. He has also edited a book ofJohn Sladek's uncollected work, published in 2002 asMaps: The Uncollected John Sladek. Langford's critical introduction toMaps won aBSFA Award for nonfiction. WithChristopher Priest, Langford also set up Ansible E-ditions (nowAnsible Editions) which publishes otherprint-on-demand collections of short stories by Sladek andDavid I. Masson; essays and review columns byBrian Aldiss,Algis Budrys,Peter Nicholls and again Sladek; and ebooks of historical interest toscience fiction fandom, downloadable at no charge from theTrans-Atlantic Fan Fund site.[27][28]
Excluding collections, Langford's most recent professionally published book isThe End of Harry Potter? (2006), an unauthorised companion to the famous series byJ. K. Rowling. The work was published after the publication of the sixth volume in the Harry Potter series, but before publication of the seventh and final volume. It contains information, extracted from the books and from Rowling's many public statements, about thewizarding world and popular theories concerning how the plot will develop in the last book. A revised version was published in the US in March 2007 by Tor Books, and in paperback form in the UK in May 2007. The book was commissioned from Langford byMalcolm Edwards ofOrion Books, who were seeking a book about the Harry Potter series.
Since 2011 he has devoted most of his time toAnsible, Ansible Editions andThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
He has been a guest of honour atBoskone,Eastercon twice,Finncon,Microcon three times,Minicon (seeList of past Minicons),Novacon,OryCon twice,Picocon several times, andWorldcon (seeList of Worldcons).
Langford holds the all-time record for mostHugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.[a] He has won 21 Hugos forBest Fan Writer, five forAnsible asBest Fanzine, another forAnsible asBest Semiprozine, one forDifferent Kinds of Darkness asBest Short Story, and one forThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction asBest Related Work.[29] Langford also has the second highest number of Hugo nominations at 55 (behindMike Glyer at 57).[2] He had a 19-year winning streak and 31-year streak of nominations for "Best Fan Writer" that came to an end in 2010.[29]
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| Year | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Langford, David (July 2000). "[Untitled review]". Curiosities.F&SF.99 (1): 162. | Richardson, Maurice (1950).The Exploits of Engelbricht. |
| 2001 | Langford, David (January 2001). "[Untitled review]". Curiosities.F&SF.100 (1): 162. | Hinton, C. Howard (1904).The Fourth Dimension. |
David Langford's Blit (1988) features images generated by fractals that drive people insane.
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(Ansible.UK) – both Langford andAnsible