GUFF:
The Incomplete Chronicles
edited by David Langford

ISBN 978-1-916508-39-2 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-916508-34-7 (ebook)

Ansible Editions, June 2025

Cover art: Ian Gunn, 1990s.

The trade paperback of GUFF: The Incomplete Chronicles was published in 2025, not long after the ebook. 9" x 6" with glossy cover; 154 pages; over 73,000 words. All proceeds from book sales go to GUFF, the Get Up-and-over/Going Under Fan Fund.

This anthology brings together the known segments of unfinished GUFF trip reports. The GUFF winners represented are Joseph Nicholas (1981), Justin Ackroyd (1984), Irwin Hirsh (1987), Roman Orszanski (1990), Eva Hauser (1992), Paul Kincaid (1999), Damien Warman and Juliette Woods (jointly, 2005) and Ang Rosin (2007).

From the Introduction

As with its prototype TAFF, a long-standing tradition of GUFF is that returned winners administer the fund until replaced by their successor from the same hemisphere and if possible write a substantial trip report, both for sale in aid of the fund and for the entertainment and edification of fandom. This tradition goes back to before TAFF itself began. A special fund was organized to bring Walt Willis from Ireland to the USA and the World SF Convention in 1952 (an initiative which led directly to the founding of TAFF), and his report The Harp Stateside is regarded as a classic of fan writing.

Many GUFF winners since 1979 have likewise published full-length trip reports (click here for available downloads). Some were waylaid by the horrors of real life and failed even to begin a report; some published instalments in fanzines but didn’t finish. Joseph Nicholas drafted a very long report whose MS was lost in a house move. Irwin Hirsh has published ten instalments, enough to be called a completed report, but wants to add more and is represented here by two chapters about the UK Worldcon he attended. Otherwise, this ebook collects what remains of reports that have been abandoned, or are so brief that they couldn’t plausibly be published as a standalone fanzine in the tradition of The Harp Stateside. There’s a lot of fine fan writing here.

David Langford
2025