The Sex Column And Other Misprints

A collection of columns by the author, some previously published in SFX magazine.

Starcombing contains eighty-five newly collected pieces of David Langford's witty commentary on the SF/fantasy scene - columns, articles, reviews, essays, even a few short-short stories from the famous 'Futures' page in Nature. Compulsive reading, crammed with insights and laughs.

In 1985, when all the world was young and dot-matrix printers stalked the primeval swamps of computing, David Langford won his Hugo Award and began a long-running column for 8000 Plus magazine (later PCW Plus). This notoriously became the page readers turned to first. The magazine was devoted to the Amstrad PCW, a bestselling home computer that pioneered affordable word processing in Britain. Langford's popular column used this official subject as a launch pad for witty coverage of life, the universe and everything. Freelancing writing and how to survive it; science fiction (especially that); secrets of editors, manuscripts, indexes, submission letters and padding; serious and spoof advice columns; parodies of Adventure games, legal proceedings, noir fiction and more; causes, scams and literary horror stories; timeless satire on shabby practice in the computer industry; awful "Thog's Masterclass" lines from SF . . . Langford shows all the wit and skill that brought him 28 Hugo Awards.

In the heart of the new millennium, worlds beyond our imagination have opened up, blurring the line between life and art. Embracing the challenges and possibilities of cyberspace, genetics, the universe, and beyond, the world of science fiction has become a porthole into the realities of tomorrow. In The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-third Annual Collection, our very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world with such compelling stories as: "Beyond the Aquila Rift": Critically acclaimed author Alastair Reynolds takes readers to the edge of the universe, where no voyager has dared to travel before---or so we think. "Comber": Our world is an ever-changing one, and award-winning author Gene Wolfe explores the darker side of our planet's fluidity in his own beautiful and inimitable style. "Audubon in Atlantis": In a world not quite like our own, bestselling author Harry Turtledove shows us that there are reasons some species have become extinct. The twenty-nine stories in this collection imaginatively take us far across the universe, into the very core of our beings, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including:Neal Asher, Paolo Bacigalupi, Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, Chris Beckett, Dominic Green, Daryl Gregory, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, James Patrick Kelley, Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Vonda N. McIntyre, David Moles, Derryl Murphy, Steven Popkes, Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Reed, Chris Roberson, Mary Rosenblum, William Sanders, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, Harry Turtledove, Peter Watts, Liz Williams, and Gene Wolfe. Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book both a valuable resource and the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

This is the best short form science fiction of 2005, selected by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field. The short story is one of the most vibrant and exciting areas in science fiction today. It is where the hot new authors emerge and where the beloved giants of the field continue to publish. Now, building on the success of the first nine volumes, Eos will once again present a collection of the best stories of the year in mass market. Here, selected and compiled by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field, are stories with visions of tomorrow and yesterday, of the strange and the familiar, of the unknown and the unknowable. With stories from an all-star team of science fiction authors, "Year's Best Sf 11" is an indispensable guide for every science fiction fan.

Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project Using a clear, easily followed approach, Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project helps anyone new to the process develop the skills to conduct the most essential part of social research data collection: the interview. The book also shows how to organize, analyze, and interpret the data. This workbook provides a step-by-step template for a collaborative class experience in social science. Organized according to the steps of the deductive scientific method, it includes essential activities to take place during class after the appropriate chapter has been read. The book begins with the process of choosing a topic and proceeds through hypothesis development, interview data collection, data entry using SPSS, and elementary data analysis. The final chapter includes the formal assignment and instructions to students on how to write about their experiences in a way that will produce an excellent final paper. By selecting the hypothesis, gathering the data, and analyzing the results, students will gain an appreciation for the strengths and potential weaknesses of "knowing" things through doing quantitative social science.

The first historical dictionary devoted to science fiction, this shows how science-fictional words and their associated concepts have developed over time, with full citations and bibliographic information. It also documents the enduring legacy of authors and their fans.