Beachcombing

and other oddments

David Langford

ISBN 978-1-716-48476-6 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-913451-72-1 (ebook)

Ansible Editions, 2020
Cover artwork by Dan Steffan with apologies to Edward Gorey

Beachcombing is David Langford’s first collection of (mostly) SF fanzine-published essays, speeches and silliness since the long-ago The Silence of the Langford (1996), edited by Ben Yalow, which was a Hugo finalist for best nonfiction in 1997. Over the years this author has won 29 Hugo Awards for his work in fanzines, science fiction newsletters, short SF, and SF reference works. Beachcombing comprises over 78,000 words of vintage Langford.

The contents include the much-acclaimed convention talks “Live Thog’s Masterclass”, “The Secret History of Ansible” and “Twenty Years of Uproar” (a ramble through favourite fanzine humour); offbeat pop-science articles for Fortean Times and elsewhere, on such subjects as perpetual motion, violet-ray healing machines, St Hildegard of Bingen, and how to detect the Number of the Beast in practically any name you choose; a handful of recipes and another handful of Drabbles; several introductions to SF books; and many instalments of unreliable autobiography.