David Langford’s Ansible Editions has published his nonfiction collection Up Through an Empty House of Stars: Reviews and Essays 1980-2002 as an ebook for the first time.

The collection originally appeared in 2003. The ebook has all of that content, plus five additional pieces from the 1980-2002 period, and the expanded, improved 2004 version of Langford’s humorous introduction from Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature. The book contains over 137,000 words.

Adam Roberts’ review of the 2003 edition said:

Some statistics: I read this collection right through in one [1] go. I nodded sagely in agreement eighty-four [84] times. I shook my head in disagreement five [5] times. I laughed out loud forty four [44] times, and smiled or smirked scores [20s] of times more. I took off my hat once [1], at the end, in tribute to Langford’s excellence as a critic. Actually, I’m making these figures up; but they give a ball-park sense of my response. This is a marvellous book. No reader of sf should miss it.

The Table of Contents follows the jump.

Here is the Table of Contents. New material is marked with a paragraph sign (¶).

• Foreword

1980

• Digging Up the Future: G.K. Chesterton
• Phyllis Eisenstein: Shadow of Earth (1979)
• R.A. Lafferty: Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? (1974)
• Larry Niven: Ringworld Engineers (1979)
• Mack Reynolds: Lagrange Five (1979)
• Keith Roberts: Ladies from Hell (1979)

1981

• Gordon R. Dickson: The Spirit of Dorsai (1979)
• Robert A. Heinlein: Expanded Universe (1980)
• Robert A. Heinlein: “The Number of the Beast –” (1980)
• Ian Watson and Michael Bishop: Under Heaven’s Bridge (1981)

1982

• On the Bestseller Trail: Aldiss, Donaldson and others ¶
• Robert A. Heinlein: Friday (1982)
• Bob Shaw: A Better Mantrap (1982)
• John Sladek: Alien Accounts (1982)
• George Turner: Vaneglory (1981)
• Ian Watson: Deathhunter (1981)

1983

• R.A. Lafferty: Aurelia (1982)
• Cornell Woolrich: The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich (1981), edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg

1984

• On Anthony Boucher
• The Michelin Guide to SF: On The Science Fiction Sourcebook (1984)

1985

• Isaac Asimov: The Robots of Dawn (1983)
• G.K. Chesterton: The Ball and the Cross (1909)
• Robert Irwin: The Arabian Nightmare (1983)
• Frederik Pohl: Midas World (1983)
• Lucius Shepard: Green Eyes (1984)

1986

• Frank Herbert: Chapter House Dune (1985)

1987

• Introduction: G.K. Chesterton Crime Omnibus ¶
• Christine Brooke-Rose: Xorandor (1986)
• Terry Pratchett: Equal Rites (1987)

1988

• Into the Parallel Universe: On Detective Fiction
• Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard Jr: L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (1987)

1989

• Greg Bear: Eternity (1988)

1990

• Dangerous Thoughts: Asimov’s Robots
• Dougal Dixon: Man After Man (1990)
• Charles Sheffield: Proteus Unbound (1989)

1991

• Crime and Chinoiserie: Ernest Bramah
• Dr Fell: John Dickson Carr’s Great Detective ¶
• “E.H.B.”: Who Put Back the Clock? (1889)
• Robert Lambourne, Michael Shallis and Michael Shortland: Close Encounters? Science and Science Fiction (1990)

1992

• A Gadget Too Far
• A Stout Fellow: Nero Wolfe
• Damon Knight: One Side Laughing: Stories Unlike Other Stories (1991)

1993

• Key Reading: The Stories of Frank Key
• Isaac Asimov: Forward the Foundation (1993)

1994

• James Blaylock: Lord Kelvin’s Machine (1992)
• Michael Swanwick: The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993)
• Gene Wolfe: Nightside the Long Sun (1993) and Lake of the Long Sun (1994)

1995

• The Badger Game: R. Lionel Fanthorpe
• Hollywood Times Three: Condon, Pratchett, Queen
• Clive Barker: Everville: The Second Book of the Art (1994)
• Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
• Eric Brown: Engineman (1994)
• Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance (1994)
• David Prill: The Unnatural (1995)
• Gene Wolfe: Caldé of the Long Sun (1994)

1996

• Albatross! Albatross!: On the Langford UFO book ¶
• Ancient Prophets: Criswell Predicts
• SF Books of the Damned: Eric Frank Russell’s Fortean SF
• Wreath of Stars: Remembering Bob Shaw
• Stephen Baxter: Ring (1994)
• Martin Gardner: Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery (1995)
• Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)

1997

• James White and Sector General
• Unspeakable Horrors: The Necronomicon
• Stephen Baxter: Vacuum Diagrams: Stories of the Xeelee Sequence (1997)
• Greg Bear: / (Slant) (1997)
• Gregory Benford: Foundation’s Fear (1997)
• Arthur C. Clarke: 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)
• Tom Holt: Open Sesame (1997)
• Tim Powers: Earthquake Weather (1997)
• Jack Vance: Night Lamp (1996)
• Tad Williams: Otherland: City of Golden Shadow ¶
• Gene Wolfe: Exodus from the Long Sun (1996)

1998

• Gene Wolfe and Lexicon Urthus
• George Hay Remembered
• Iain M. Banks: qInversions (1998)
• David Brin: The Second Uplift Trilogy (1995-1998)
• Diana Wynne Jones: Deep Secret (1997)
• Ken MacLeod: The Cassini Division (1998)
• Elizabeth Hand: Glimmering (1997)
• Frederik Pohl: O Pioneer! (1998)
• Harry Turtledove: A World of Difference (1989)

1999

• Hacking the Brain
• Stephen Baxter: Time (Manifold 1) (1999)
• Hal Clement: Trio for Slide Rule and Typewriter (1999)
• Michael Scott Rohan: The Castle of the Winds (1998)
• Brian Stableford: Architects of Emortality (1999)
• Peter Watts: Starfish (1999)
• Gene Wolfe: On Blue’s Waters (1999)

2000

• Growing Up, Striking Back: Jack Vance
• Introduction to Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature, ed. Andrew M. Butler, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn ¶
• Lois McMaster Bujold: A Civil Campaign: A Comedy of Biology and Manners (1999)
• Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter: The Light of Other Days (2000)
• Frank M. Robinson: Science Fiction of the 20th Century (1999)
• Gene Wolfe: In Green’s Jungles (2000)

2001

• Maps: Collecting John Sladek
• Donald Kingsbury: Psychohistorical Crisis (2001)
• Alfred Kubin: The Other Side (2000)
• Gene Wolfe: Return to the Whorl (2001)

2002

• Tom Holt: Man or Myth?
• Kevin J. Anderson: Hidden Empire (2002)
• John Barnes: The Merchants of Souls (2001)
• China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
• Original Appearances