Platen Stories

A5 format; 64pp plus card covers; cover art by Jim Barker.

Platen Stories is a 68-page, one-shot fanzine published in August 1987 in connection with Dave Langford's GoHship at Conspiracy '87.

Langford has never reissued Platen Stories as a standalone ebook since several items (marked * below) were incorporated into his larger collection The Silence of the Langford and more (marked ¶ below) were added to the expanded ebook of Silence.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Zen and the Art of Egotripping
• Vulgarity and Nullity
• The Book of War: Chapter 2080 ¶
• One Hundred Years Ago ¶
• The Moving Accident *
• The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two *
• The Inverted Baked Alaska, and After ¶
• The Leaky Establishment: The Final Drips *
• Fizz! Buzz! *
• Hazel's Language Lessons
• Mexicon Jigsaw
• A Load of Crystal Balls: Great Failures of Prediction AD 2000-3000 ¶
• Our Lady of Pain *

Additionally, free space at the end of each item is packed with filler snippets from assorted Langford fanzines. "Vulgarity and Nullity", a review of Robert A. Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast", ended up in a serious Langford critical collection (Up Through an Empty House of Stars, 2003) rather than in Silence; the con report "Mexicon Jigsaw" reappeared in his Don't Try This at Home.

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Publication

1987

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