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31-411: Dark Gods is a collection by T. E. D. Klein published in 1985. Dark Gods is a collection of four longer stories, sometimes classed as novellas. The first three had been previously published, but the final story was published first in this collection. Dave Langford reviewed Dark Gods for White Dwarf #87, and stated that "the supernatural fear gets a leg-up from existing nervousness about (say)

62-466: A BSFA Award for nonfiction. With Christopher Priest , Langford also set up Ansible E-ditions (now Ansible Editions ) which publishes other print-on-demand collections of short stories by Sladek and David I. Masson ; essays and review columns by Brian Aldiss , Algis Budrys , Peter Nicholls and again Sladek; and ebooks of historical interest to science fiction fandom , downloadable at no charge from

93-458: A "tiny and informally run software company" with science fiction writer Christopher Priest , called Ansible Information after Langford's news-sheet. The company has ceased trading. Langford has worn a hearing aid since childhood, and increasing hearing difficulties have reduced Langford's participation in some fan activities. His own jocular attitude towards the matter led to a 2003 chapbook anthology of his work being titled Let's Hear It for

124-560: A Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 , published in 1979, is an account of a UFO encounter, as experienced by a Victorian ; in its framing story Langford claims to have found the manuscript in an old desk (the story's narrator, William Robert Loosley, is a genuine ancestor of Langford's wife) and he analyses the story from a modern perspective, highlighting apparent descriptions of nuclear physics and quantum mechanics in Loosley's record. This has led some UFOlogists to believe

155-589: A guest of honour at Boskone , Eastercon twice, Finncon , Microcon three times, Minicon (see List of past Minicons ), Novacon , OryCon twice, Picocon several times, and Worldcon (see List of Worldcons ). Langford holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards , with a total of 29 wins. He has won 21 Hugos for Best Fan Writer , five for Ansible as Best Fanzine , another for Ansible as Best Semiprozine , one for Different Kinds of Darkness as Best Short Story , and one for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as Best Related Work . Langford also has

186-595: A single glance. Langford has won numerous Hugo Awards for his activities as a fan journalist on his free newsletter Ansible , which he has described as "The SF Private Eye " . The name is taken from Ursula K. Le Guin 's science-fictional communication device . The newsletter first appeared in August 1979. Fifty issues were published by 1987, when it entered a hiatus. Since resuming publication in 1991, Ansible has appeared monthly (with occasional extra issues given "half" numbers, e.g. Ansible 53 1 ⁄ 2 ) as

217-673: A total of 29 wins. David Langford was born and grew up in Newport, Wales , before studying for a degree in Physics at Brasenose College, Oxford , where he first became involved in science fiction fandom . Langford is married to Hazel and is the older brother of the musician and artist Jon Langford . His first job was as a weapons physicist at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston , Berkshire from 1975 to 1980. In 1985 he set up

248-652: A two-sided A4 sheet and latterly also online. A digest has appeared as the "Ansible Link" column in Interzone since issue 62, August 1992. The complete archive of Ansible is available at Langford's personal website. Ansible issue 300 was published on 2 July 2012. Ansible has for many years advertised that paper copies are available for various unlikely items such as "SAE, Fwai-chi shags or Rhune Books of Deeds". In 1996, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: "Tell me what I can send in exchange for Ansible . In Oregon we grow many large fir trees; also we have fish." Langford wrote

279-404: A yellow background have won the award; those with a grey background are the nominees on the short-list. If the short story was originally published in a book with other stories rather than by itself or in a magazine, the book title is included after the publisher's name.   *    Winners and joint winners   +    No winner selected Beginning with

310-478: Is a harmful image to vampires . The roleplaying game Eclipse Phase has so-called "Basilisk hacks", sensory or linguistic attacks on cognitive processes. The concept of a " cognitohazard ", largely identical to Langford's basilisks, is sometimes used in the fictional universe of the SCP Foundation . The image's name comes from the basilisk , a legendary reptile said to have the power to cause death with

341-545: The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund site. Excluding collections, Langford's most recent professionally published book is The End of Harry Potter? (2006), an unauthorised companion to the famous series by J. K. Rowling . The work was published after the publication of the sixth volume in the Harry Potter series, but before publication of the seventh and final volume. It contains information, extracted from

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372-469: The "Langford Visual Hack". Similar references, also mentioning Langford by name, feature in works by Greg Egan and Charles Stross . The eponymous Snow Crash of Neal Stephenson 's novel is a combination mental/ computer virus capable of infecting the minds of hackers via their visual cortex . The idea also appears in Blindsight by Peter Watts where a particular combination of right angles

403-569: The 77 nomination years, 219 authors have had works nominated; 59 of these have won, including co-authors and Retro Hugos. One translator has been noted along with the author of a story written in a language other than English: Alex Woodend, in 2024, for a translation of a work from Chinese. Harlan Ellison has received the most Hugos for Best Short Story at four, Arthur C. Clarke , Larry Niven , Mike Resnick , Michael Swanwick , and Connie Willis have each won three times, and Poul Anderson , Joe Haldeman , Naomi Kritzer , and Ken Liu have won twice,

434-626: The Deaf Man , was published in 1992 by NESFA Press . This was incorporated into a follow-up collection, consisting of 47 nonfiction pieces and three short stories, and published as The Silence of the Langford in 1996. Up Through an Empty House of Stars (2003) is a further collection of one hundred reviews and essays. Much of Langford's early book-length publication was futurological in nature. War in 2080: The Future of Military Technology , published in 1979, and The Third Millennium: A History of

465-710: The Deaf Man . As a writer of fiction, Langford is noted for his parodies . A collection of short stories, parodying various science fiction , fantasy fiction and detective story writers, has been published as He Do the Time Police in Different Voices (2003), incorporating the earlier and much shorter 1988 parody collection The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two . Two novels, parodying disaster novels and horror , respectively, are Earthdoom! and Guts , both co-written with John Grant . His novelette An Account of

496-545: The World AD 2000-3000 (1985), jointly written with fellow science fiction author Brian Stableford , are two examples. Both these authors also worked with Peter Nicholls on The Science in Science Fiction (1982). Within the broader field of popular non-fiction, Langford co-wrote Facts and Fallacies: a Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1984) with Chris Morgan. Langford assisted in producing

527-467: The author's experiences at Aldermaston. His 2004 collection Different Kinds of Darkness is a compilation of 36 of his shorter, non-parodic science fiction pieces, the title story of which won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2001. A number of Langford's stories are set in a future containing images, colloquially called "basilisks", which crash the human mind by triggering thoughts that

558-509: The ballot of six nominations is performed roughly in April through July, subject to change depending on when that year's Worldcon is held. Prior to 2017, the final ballot was five works; it was changed that year to six, with each initial nominator limited to five nominations. Worldcons are generally held near Labor Day , and are held in a different city around the world each year. Members are permitted to vote "no award", if they feel that none of

589-737: The books and from Rowling's many public statements, about the wizarding world and popular theories concerning how the plot will develop in the last book. A revised version was published in the US in March 2007 by Tor Books, and in paperback form in the UK in May 2007. The book was commissioned from Langford by Malcolm Edwards of Orion Books , who were seeking a book about the Harry Potter series. Since 2011 he has devoted most of his time to Ansible , Ansible Editions and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . He has been

620-493: The first issue in October 1986 to the last, dated Christmas 1996; it was revived in the small-press magazine PCW Today from 1997 to 2002, and all the columns are collected as The Limbo Files (2009). Langford's 1985–1988 "The Disinformation Column" for Apricot File was about Apricot Computers systems; these columns are collected as The Apricot Files (2007). A collection of nonfiction and humorous work, Let's Hear It for

651-480: The mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking. The first of these stories was " BLIT " ( Interzone , 1988); others include "What Happened at Cambridge IV" ( Digital Dreams , 1990); "comp.basilisk FAQ", and the Hugo -winning "Different Kinds of Darkness" ( F&SF , 2000). The idea has appeared elsewhere; in one of his novels, Ken MacLeod has characters explicitly mention (and worry about encountering)

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682-525: The nominees is deserving of the award that year, and in the case that "no award" takes the majority the Hugo is not given in that category. This happened in the Best Short Story category in 2015. In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the short story was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature" article. Entries with

713-399: The only other authors to win more than once. Resnick has received the most nominations at 18, while Swanwick has received 14; no other author has gotten more than 7. Michael A. Burstein , with 7, has the highest number of nominations without winning. Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention , or Worldcon, and

744-408: The parts of town where you wouldn't walk after dark. Low Pavement, for example, in terror-haunted Nottingham." David Langford David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953) is a British author, editor, and critic , largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science-fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards , with

775-728: The presentation evening constitutes its central event. The selection process is defined in the World Science Fiction Society Constitution as instant-runoff voting with six nominees, except in the case of a tie. The short stories on the ballot are the six most-nominated by members that year, with no limit on the number of stories that can be nominated. The 1955 and 1958 awards did not include any recognition of runner-up stories, but since 1959 all six candidates have been recorded. Initial nominations are made by members in January through March, while voting on

806-525: The science fiction and fantasy book review column for White Dwarf from 1983 to 1988, continuing in other British role-playing game magazines until 1991; the columns are collected as The Complete Critical Assembly (2001). He has also written a regular column for the SFX magazine, featuring in every issue from its launch in 1995 to #274 dated July 2016. A tenth-anniversary collection of these columns appeared in 2005 as The SEX Column and other misprints ; this

837-530: The second edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) and contributed some 80,000 words of articles to The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997). He is one of the four chief editors of the third, online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (launched October 2011), and shared this reference work's 2012 Hugo Award for Best Related Work. He has also edited a book of John Sladek 's uncollected work, published in 2002 as Maps: The Uncollected John Sladek . Langford's critical introduction to Maps won

868-464: The second highest number of Hugo nominations at 55 (behind Mike Glyer at 57). He had a 19-year winning streak and 31-year streak of nominations for "Best Fan Writer" that came to an end in 2010. Hugo Award for Best Short Story The Hugo Award for Best Short Story has been awarded annually since 1955, except in 1957. The award was titled "Best Short Fiction" rather than "Best Short Story" in 1960–1966. During this time no Novelette category

899-490: The story is genuine, including the US author Whitley Strieber , who referred to the 1871 incident in his novel Majestic . Langford wrote the story as a spoof at the suggestion of his publisher and says that since publication he has always admitted the story to be fictional when asked — but, as he notes, "Journalists usually didn't ask." Langford also had one serious science fiction novel published in 1982, The Space Eater . The 1984 novel The Leaky Establishment satirises

930-612: Was awarded and the Novella category had not yet been established; the award was defined only as a work "of less than novel length" that was not published as a stand-alone book. In addition to the regular Hugo awards, beginning in 1996 Retrospective Hugo Awards, or "Retro Hugos", have been available to be awarded for 50, 75, or 100 years prior. Retro Hugos may only be awarded for years after 1939 in which no awards were originally given. To date, Retro Hugo awards have been given for short stories for 1939, 1941, 1943–1946, 1951, and 1954. During

961-564: Was shortlisted for a 2006 Hugo Award for Best Related Book . Further SFX columns are collected in Starcombing: columns, essays, reviews and more (2009), which also includes much other material written since 2000. David Langford has also written columns for several computer magazines, notably 8000 Plus (later renamed PCW Plus ), which was devoted to the Amstrad PCW word processor. This column ran, though not continuously, from

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