David Langford (1) (1953–)

This book is a compilation of Dave Langford's convention reports, pulled together from various sources - mainly fanzines - between 1976 and 2014. I saw quite a few of the earlier reports at the time of publication - I got quite a few fanzines in those days - so it is good to have them collected together. The more recent ones were mainly new to me, and I have to say that I had a few laughter-related incidents whilst reading them.

At the same time, the early reports are nearly fifty years old, show more and reflect the times they were written in, both for content and subject matter. Dave comments that the accepted "classic" format for a convention report starts with details of how the writer travelled to the convention, sometimes at greater length and detail than the convention report itself. After all, Walt Willis' account of his first trip to the USA for the 1953 Worldcon started with a lengthy piece talking about the much more difficult part of his trip, getting from Belfast to Cork and then on to Queenstown for the tender that would take him to join his ocean liner for the transatlantic crossing, cheap air travel not being a thing then. It is in itself a valuable picture of days gone by. So here we have an account of Dave's 1963 Ford Anglia and some of the characteristics it "boasted", most of which would get it taken off the road today. In other reports, there are names dropped of fans and writers no longer with us.

I get namechecked twice in this book; once for a comment I'd made which I'd forgotten, and once for a drink-related incident which I'd rather forget.

I've always felt that Dave Langford is one of our finest comic writers, and this book simply confirms it. show less

This is the fairly definitive collection of all of Dave Langford's serious short fiction up to 2004. It covers science fiction, fantasy and horror - though the horror is a particularly British type where the horrors are all of our own making. I was particularly struck by a 1994 story 'Serpent Eggs', wherein a UFO investigator follows up a story which takes him to a hippie commune on a remote Scottish island, and gets his comeuppance through his own lack of scientific knowledge. The writing show more in this story felt particularly dreich, as the Scots say, and the scene setting was particularly effective.

There are four outright fantasy stories in the collection; some have commented that they felt them to be so-so (although Dave Langford's 'so-so' would be the highest quality of many other writers in the genre), but I was well engaged with each of them, perhaps because I read very little heroic fantasy.

The best in the book is left to last; four of Dave's stories of 'basilisks', fractal images specifically designed to short-circuit the brains of anyone who looks at them. The last, from which the collection takes its name, shows the life-changing effects of taking any new thing to its ultimate conclusion, and is as good a piece of 'out-there' thinking as you could wish for. It won the Hugo Award for best short story in 2001. show less

Dave Langford's only hard-sf novel to date is a tour de force of theoretical physics with the nastiest matter transmitter you will ever come across.

Matter transmitters in this universe have been proved possible; but not practicable. Their use affects nearby suns, making them go nova unless the MT gate is restricted in size - to 1.9 centimetres. Not very useful; but when a lost human colony is detected using MT technology, something has to be done.

The military of the time have (by and large) show more perfected the technology of regenerating damaged and destroyed bodies and alleviating many of the simpler forms of death. A desperate plan is hatched to a) send a sophisticated robot through a 'mini-gate' to build first a spaceship and then two regeneration tanks, then b) send a soldier and a psychic communications specialist through the gate to undertake a mission to persuade whoever is using MT at the other end to stop. And there is, of course, a Plan B...

The regeneration tanks are necessary because the only way to get a human being through a 1.9 centimetre aperture is to reduce them to a spinal column and as much cerebral cortex as can be spared...

The reality of getting to the colony and then making contact with the colonists takes up about half the book; the other half tells what happens then, the political manouevering, and the revelation of Earth's final solution. Strange to relate, it has a diameter of about 1.9 centimetres...

The UK Arrow paperback has some unintentionally hilarious cover art, showing a spacesuited figure apparently doing ballet exercises with a giant glowing Malteser. Apparently, the artist had no idea how to show a mini black hole.... show less

I love how a whole world can be created in a short story. Many of my early SF readings were the short stories in Analog magazine. I like short stories which I can read in up to 30 minutes. Longer than that they become something else. The perfect thing about outstanding short-stories like "Different Kinds of Darkness" is that it's short. I don't want to get to know the characters if I'm forced to part with them after 30 minutes or an hour. A lot of authors nowadays seem to be under the show more impression that all they have to do is write a scene and then just stop - no narrative, no message, no characters, no atmosphere, no point. Particularly true of single-author collections (but not Langford’s). I don't think I've really appreciated any writers in more than a single shorty story since the likes of Borges, Clarke, Langford & Bradbury. I measure shortness and thus quality of short stories by comparing how much of time passes in the narrative compared to how much time the book takes to read. Short stories - genre or literary - are more able to stun the reader in their entirety. You can forget bits of even the best novel. But an incisive short story hits you hard and hits you whole. I remember acutely reading Different Darkness” the first time round. The essence of Best Short Stories is something very difficult to attain. On the other hand, I’ve re-read entire novels I forgot which I read only a few years ago.

A well-executed short story is truly a Thing of Beauty. In this collection we have several Things of Beauty.

We all know Borges was the master of short stories. Langford comes a close second. show less