Up Through an Empty House of Stars Author:David Langford At last, Up Through an Empty House of Stars brings together the best of the never before collected SF reviews and articles that helped build David Langford's remarkable reputation since 1980. Complementing the review columns collected in The Complete Critical Assembly (2001) and the knockabout essays and squibs in The Silence of the Langford (19... more »96), this volume's one hundred glittering selections mix serious critical insight with the inimitable Langford wit. In 2002 David Langford won his sixteenth Hugo award as Best Fan Writer, for critical and humorous commentary on SF. In the same year his occasionally scandalous SF newsletter Ansible won its fifth Hugo. Langford also received a 2001 Hugo for Best Short Story, and the 2002 Skylark Award. He is also a winner of the British SF Association Award (twice) and European SF Award. Here he shines a unique light on classics like (to name but a few) Ernest Bramah, G.K. Chesterton, Robert Heinlein and Jack Vance, and analyses major SF and fantasy – not to mention major clunkers and minor eccentrics – of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, including recent work by such current stars as Stephen Baxter, Gene Wolfe and China Miéville. In addition Langford offers witty asides on crime fiction and its SF links, gleeful examinations of writing so bad it's almost good, and (even at his most serious) turns of phrase to make you laugh aloud.« less