Pieces of Langford

Pieces of Langford -- 1st ed cover

Pieces of Langford by David Langford is a collection of 25 of his SFX magazine columns from 1995 to 1997, chosen and published by John and Eve Harvey as a fundraiser for the "Auld Lang Fund" (a one-off fan fund set up by the Harveys and others to bring Langford as an extra, unofficial guest to the 1999 World SF Convention in Melbourne, Australia).

All these columns and many more can be found in the much larger SFX-based collection The SEX Column, still available both in print and as an ebook.

  • Publication Date: March 1998
  • Publisher: Harvey Consultancy, Tonwell, Herts, UK
  • Format: A5 paperback chapbook
  • ISBN: none
  • Page Count: 35
  • Cover Artist: design by John Harvey
  • Availability: out of print
    Contents in order of appearance in chapbook ...
  1. #3, August: We Told You So -- sf and prediction
  2. #22, February: Read My Lips -- about MIT Press book on HAL 9000
  3. #16, September: Big Bang Theory -- sf superweapons
  4. #30, October: The Oops Factor -- silly sf science
  5. #10, March: Crosstalk -- allusions and cross-references in sf
  6. #13, June: Stuffed With Large Insects -- strange meals in sf
  7. #18, November: The Case of the Red Planet -- the current fad for Mars as a setting
  8. #28, August: It's Big! It's Dumb! -- a round up of sf's Big Dumb Objects
  9. #26, June: Wells: Behind Closed Doors -- sidelights on H.G. Wells's life
  10. #15, August: So You Want to Be a Reviewer? -- tricks of the trade
  11. #7, December: Visit Sunny Mordor! -- on The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
  12. #21, January: Second Childhood -- on J.P. Martin's "Uncle" books, now a free read at Infinity Plus.
  13. #14, July: Look at the Evidence -- on John Clute as critic
  14. #27, July: My Fantasy Life -- the horrors of working on The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
  15. #20, Christmas: Blurbismo -- who writes sf blurbs, anyway?
  16. #23, March: Nine Secrets of Stichomancy -- how to write a short story in a morning
  17. #24, April: Been There, Stole That -- blatant literary thefts
  18. #25, May: Curse of the Typo -- hideous consequences of one or two scrambled letters
  19. #29, September: The Authorized Version -- the gulf between what they wrote and what you see on the page
  20. #5, October: Badgered to Death -- Lionel Fanthorpe and Badger Books
  21. #31, November: The Critic on the Hearth -- the war between authors and critics
  22. #11, April: On the Circuit -- sf convention guest horrors
  23. #17, October: Random Fandom -- some of those esoteric fan terms misdefined
  24. #19, December: Hugos There? -- weirdness and follies of sf's top awards
  25. #32, December: The Numbers Game -- gloating over shelves of Hugos