All Good Things: The Last SFX Visions by David Langford
Contents List
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The book contents are laid out in rough chronological order from 2009 to 2021, with non-SFX material followed by SFX columns in each year. Just to be different, the list below groups the SFX columns (with brief descriptions) separately. “Random Reading” columns appeared in The New York Review of Science Fiction. Items newly added in the ebook edition are marked with a paragraph sign ¶.
- What Has Gone Before: Introduction (with a brief 2023 update)
- Random Reading: The Spad-Gas and the Offog
- Phil Baker – The Devil Is a Gentleman (review of Dennis Wheatley biography)
- A Short History of The Eye of Argon (with Sandra Bond)
- Random Reading: The Pervasion of Lint
- Load of Balls
- Random Reading: Old Stuff
- Carnacki Brings Home the Bacon
- Forty-Two Boxes
- Random Reading: The Prodigal Returns
- Mr Langford’s Milfords ¶
- The Silicon Critic ¶
- Marooned on Terminus ¶
- Fun with Chris Priest ¶
In cases where SFX disimproved my original column title, I’ve added their version in square brackets after the link. The exception here is “Secret Histories”, a title which I eventually realized I had used twice – the second one thus became “Secret Histories II”.
- SFX #184, July 2009: Behind the Grim Grin – Christopher Priest moves into self-publishing
- SFX #185, August 2009: The Voices of Ballard – yet again saying goodbye
- SFX #186, September 2009: Moose in Darkest Berks – and not chocolate moose either
- SFX #187, October 2009: Dark Side of the Net – contains an invented pseudonym that the SFX lawyers dared not print!
- SFX #188, November 2009: Googled to Death – see Langford try to be topical and come a cropper
- SFX #189, December 2009: Moving the Goalposts – more fun with SF awards and their rules
- SFX #190, January 2010: The Agony Aunts – are you in need of help, advice, sympathy? Tough
- SFX #191, February 2010: Web of Infamy – why make your convention website difficult to use when with a little more effort you could make it bloody impossible?
- SFX #192, March 2010: Textbooks of the Argonauts – catching up on encyclopedias and Argonology
- SFX #193, April 2010: Mythago Man – remembering Rob Holdstock
- SFX #194, May 2010: Elementary, My Dear Watson – on money and unobtainium
- SFX #195, June 2010: Amazon Ate My Hamster – another one that worried the SFX lawyers until I deleted a joke about Amazon’s antics being aimed at me as a reaction to rude comments in past columns
- SFX #196, July 2010: Protons and Simile – of lurid likenesses, cackhanded comparisons, and the public trousers
- SFX #197, Summer 2010: Secret Histories II [Secret Histories] – a few more or less choice selections from the small presses
- SFX #198, August 2010: Election Fever – in which we go to the Hustings, who are either aliens or mutants
- SFX #199, September 2010: The Mathemagician – remembering Martin Gardner
- SFX #200, October 2010: Bicentennial – unreliable memoirs for the anniversary issue
- SFX #201, November 2010: In Your Dreams – from “Dreams Are Sacred” via The Prisoner and Scrooge McDuck to Inception
- SFX #202, December 2010: The Weediest Link – Anne Robinson: “From the title, what do you think this column is about?” Contestant: “Gardening.”
- SFX #203, January 2011: Serial Thriller – remembering Ted Tubb and Earl Dumarest
- SFX #204, February 2011: Hidden Messages – never a cross word
- SFX #205, March 2011: Seven Year Itch – geekery, mockery and a rare perspective shift
- SFX #206, April 2011: Ten Foot Pole – spam, spam, spam, Wikileaks and spam
- SFX #207, May 2011: Exuberant Verbosity – yet more wild and whirling words
- SFX #208, June 2011: Sanity Clause – the jaws that bite, the publishing clauses that catch
- SFX #209, July 2011: Hidden Secrets – scrawling graffiti in the margins of the Voynich Manuscript
- SFX #210, Summer 2011: Jones Disagrees – another sad farewell, to the creator of Chrestomanci
- SFX #211, August 2011: Tribal Rites – Immanentize the Eastercon!
- SFX #212, September 2011: Respect At Last – or how I made an exhibition of myself in the British Library
- SFX #213, October 2011: Panic Stations – you mean we have to write the thing?
- SFX #214, November 2011: Naughty, Naughty – pandering to filthy minds
- SFX #215, December 2011: Who’s In Charge? – the Bavarian Illuminati or the Milk Marketing Board?
- SFX #216, January 2012: Triffid Pursuit – your starter for 3.14159 is ...
- SFX #217, February 2012: Deep Impact – the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom tooth
- SFX #218, March 2012: The Dragon Lady – farewell to Anne McCaffrey
- SFX #219, April 2012: Still Barmy – from its secret HQ in the gutter, SF conquers the world
- SFX #220, May 2012: Hello, Lobachevsky [It’s a steal] – if it makes pots of money it must be plagiarized, right?
- SFX #221, June 2012: Revenge of the Eyeballs [In Plain Sight] – close encounters of the retinal kind
- SFX #222, July 2012: Round Number – a little-known tricentennial
- SFX #223, Summer 2012: Puppies & Ray-Guns [Puppies & Guns] – more agonies and ecstasies of SF awards
- SFX #224, August 2012: Poirot into Space – the crimes of science fiction
- SFX #225, September 2012: The Martian Chronicler [The Rocket Man] – remembering Ray Bradbury
- SFX #226, October 2012: Jobsworth – cloaca-and-dagger fiction
- SFX #227, November 2012: The Long Haul – oh God, he’s going on about the SF Encyclopedia again
- SFX #228, December 2012: Stainless Steel Harry [Harry the Hero] – a few words about the passing of Harry Harrison
- SFX #229, January 2013: Fifty Shades of Thog [They Said It] – everyone else rings unfunny changes on Fifty Shades of Grey, and now it’s my turn
- SFX #230, February 2013: More Rotten Cabbages [Rotten Cabbages] – positively not the last appearance of the “As Others See Us” theme
- SFX #231, March 2013: Found Poetry – Langford as art installation
- SFX #232, April 2013: PODmania – unsubtly plugging another of my projects
- SFX #233, May 2013: Post-Kindle – I have seen the future and it works, but not very well
- SFX #234, June 2013: Spice Marinas – Games Workshop make prats of themselves again
- SFX #235, July 2013: Dressing Down – low-budget costumes, brown studies and purple prose
- SFX #236, Summer 2013: Reviewing Blues – the joy (or not) of freebies
- SFX #237, August 2013: Neat Tricks – oh no, Thog has slipped his leash again!
- SFX #238, September 2013: Grand Old Man – remembering Jack Vance
- SFX #239, October 2013: E-Overload – struggling feebly with ebook production
- SFX #240, November 2013: Take a Dump – information wants to be dumped!
- SFX #241, December 2013: Pohl Position – remembering Fred Pohl
- SFX #242, January 2014: E-Freebies – putting the gut into Gutenberg
- SFX #243, February 2014: 1 Down: Respect – cruciverbalism revisited
- SFX #244, March 2014: Lessing and More – Doris Lessing joins the choir invisible
- SFX #245, April 2014: Outsider R.I.P. – remembering Colin Wilson
- SFX #246, May 2014: Badge of Infamy – I am not a number! I am a free fan!
- SFX #247, June 2014: 100 Things – an object lesson
- SFX #248, July 2014: Heads We Lose – when will this abuse of defenceless books cease?
- SFX #249, Summer 2014: Flash Fiction – Gibberne’s Nervous Accelerator: better than benzedrine!
- SFX #250, August 2014: The Big 250 – more topical numerology
- SFX #251, September 2014: Hugo Horrors – the usual routine scandals
- SFX #252, October 2014: Thogomized! – has he fired six quotes or only five? Do you feel lucky?
- SFX #253, November 2014: Curiosa Dept – curiouser and curiouser, bookier and bookier
- SFX #254, December 2014: Loncon Overload – what did you do at the Worldcon, daddy?
- SFX #255, January 2015: Don’t Look Now – “do not look into laser with remaining eye”
- SFX #256, February 2015: Filmic Factoids – notes towards my unwritten bestseller The Science of Monster Movies
- SFX #257, March 2015: Wrong Notes – newspaper fact-non-checking and more Weediest Links
- SFX #258, April 2015: Gathering MOSS – Felicity screamed uncontrollably as the unspeakable horror inexorably emerged from the VAT ...
- SFX #259, May 2015: Books About [Critical Mass] – our glorious critical heritage (or, The Hunting of the Snark)
- SFX #260, June 2015: Bat Durston Lives – didn’t you know that every planet has a West?
- SFX #261, July 2015: 20 Glorious Years – Anniversary Time, but Terry Pratchett had to leave the party early
- SFX #262, Summer 2015: Puppygate – a general lament on lack of house-training
- SFX #263, August 2015: Throne Up – revisiting the ever-unpopular “As Others See Us” theme
- SFX #264, September 2015: Butterfly Mind – step on my brain and you could change history
- SFX #265, October 2015: Looking Backward – blue plaque? You may need to see your dentist
- SFX #266, November 2015: Plutocracy – the tactful term is “planet of restricted growth”
- SFX #267, December 2015: Puppy Kicking – these people really are indescribably tedious
- SFX #268, January 2016: Double-Takes – by popular lack of request, Thog begins his farewell tour
- SFX #269, February 2016: Untrue Names – on onomastics and terminological inexactitude
- SFX #270, March 2016: Crash! – a computer disaster and some thoughts on memory
- SFX #271, April 2016: Ten Year Hitch [The Con Is On] – distant rumblings of another UK Worldcon
- SFX #272, May 2016: We Meant To Say – strange corrections and clarifications
- SFX #273, June 2016: Balderdash – SF lack of hirsuteness
- SFX #274, July 2016: All Good Things – supported by positively the last SFX appearance of Thog, Langford bows to the axe
- All the SFX Columns and Features (extending the above list to include all the earlier columns, from the first instalment in June 1995) ¶