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The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two by David Langford is a collection of sf/fantasy parodies and pastiches, brought together under a title already used for an unrelated critical polemic which appears not here but elsewhere, in The Silence of the Langford. This entire collection is now incorporated into the 2003 He Do the Time Police in Different Voices.
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- Introduction (includes parodic material from Asimov book review in Paperback Inferno, 1979, and article "Play It Again, Frodo", White Dwarf, 1986
- Guest Introduction by H*rl*n Ell*s*n
- "Xanthopsia" by P**rs Anth*ny (original to this collection)
- "Tales of the Black Scriveners" by Is**c As*m*v (original to this collection)
- "Look At It This Way" by L*w*s C*rr*ll (verse, Amazing SF, 1985)
- "The Distressing Damsel" by The Br*th*rs Gr*mm (generic fairytale pastiche, Amazing SF, 1984)
- "Duel of Words" by Fr*nk H*rb*rt (SFinx, 1983)
- "The Thing in the Bedroom" by W*ll**m H*pe H*dgson (Knave, 1984) -- introducing Dagon Smythe, Psychic Investigator
- "The Gutting" by A.N. Horrorauthor (adapted extract from the then unpublished Guts, 2001)
- "The Mad Gods' Omelette" by M*ch**l M**rc*ck (White Dwarf, 1984)
- "Jellyfish" by D*m*n R*ny*n (Knave, 1985)
- "Lost Event Horizon" by E.E. Sm*th, attrib. (generic space opera pastiche, Imagine, 1984)
- "The Spawn of Non-Q" by A.E. v*n V*gt (original to this collection)
- "Outbreak" by J*m*s Wh*te -- The Last Sector General Story (A Novacon Garland, Birmingham SF Group, 1985)
Reviews
J*hn Cl*te (parodied by Colin Greenland), Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction
Discountenancing all he nudges, through the everlasting sf clambake trots D*v*d L*ngf*rd, sowing shuriken asterisks like frisbees, the glint of bonhomous rapacity in his crinkly eye. He is certain of his welcome. We were glad to see D**gl*s *d*ms, with his coruscated teatray of embezzled tropes. We have hugged T*rry Pr*tch*tt, and his luggage. But L*ngf*rd was here first, chirpy institution with jesting privileges.... We say the darnest things. Our clammed air froths with prosthetic intoxication and boogie. L*ngf*rd froths the best.
On individual stories
Karl Edward Wagner selected "The Thing in the Bedroom" for Year's Best Horror Stories, Series XIII (1985)
Ann Collier, Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction
Excellent ... "Sex Pirates of the Blood Asteroid" by David Langford is a burlesque caricature of space opera. It is hilariously funny and boasts a superbutch hero with far more brawn than brain who nonchalantly shaves with an (admittedly tiny) nuclear flame thrower, who is forever 'drawing his potent blaster' whilst escaping from inevitable death. A totally hissable villain kidnaps the heroine whose role is to faint decorously and frequently. The hero is strangely reticent when is comes to sexual matters and is far more relaxed when dealing with the "Vomisa killer robots" who regrettably haven't quite mastered Asimov's first two laws but are very well-briefed on the third.