Current status: 10% completion, 21 bookmarks on SFL Archives Volume 11 readthrough
This is going to be a shorter than normal update, but it's all fresh material. SFL Volume 11 is about half a Megabyte shorter than SFL Volume 10, and lots of interesting and terrible movies are coming out circa 1986. LABYRINTH! SPACE CAMP! COBRA! ALIENS 2! STAR TREK 4! BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA! etc, etc.
Actual SFL Volume 11 weird, bizarre, horrifying and retroactively interesting things:
-Should books be marked scarlet letter style regarding the sexual slants in them? (gay/lesbian/cis/pedophile/dolphin/centaurs/etc)...
-Sexual slant chat lead to SFLers commenting on Anne McCaffrey's DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN books, with how most of the dragon-riders seem to be forced into being bisexual by mental-links with their dragons. Lots and lots of Pern chat, with "impress" being mentioned a whole lot. Having never read any of the Pern books, guessing "impress" is a Pern universe stand-in word for non-consent.
-The 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster happens. Thankfully, none of the usual SFL edgelords do their expected edgelord takes. Instead the SFL reaction to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is universal horror and condolences for everyone directly affected by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster....and within hours, one SFLer has Zapruder Film analyzed the Space shuttle launch tapes and detected flames shooting out of one the solid-fuel boosters.
The reason why the Challenger disaster got me so mad on the SA forums/gets me so mad IRL is that the Challenger did not have to launch then; there was a massive political push to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger ASAP.
Why? So that the TEACHER IN SPACE project's scheduled broadcast of 2 15-minute science lessons from the Space Shuttle in orbit to all the children in the USA would happen on schedule and bring the USA/NASA/President Reagan much prestige. Instead, rules got ignored and bypassed, and tragedy happened.
Although it's kind of old, Diane Vaughan's THE CHALLENGER LAUNCH DECISION is my preferred recommendation to other people because the book goes into great detail about the many factors to the Challenger Space Shuttle launching when it did, AND Diane Vaughan flat-out admitted in the introduction that she had a canned conclusion ready, but all the evidence and interviews she did as research made her change her mind.
-Frank Herbert, original DUNE series author death notice.
-Peri (Nicola Bryant), a original DOCTOR WHO TV series Companion triggered a few proto-incel SFLers hard and the triggered proto-incels get rock-hard/cheer when Nicola Bryant is dropped from the Doctor Who series.
-The DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN weirdness discussion IMPRESSES more SFLers into posting about Dragonriders of Pern series weirdness in a vicious feedback loop.
-The crime Roj Blake gets framed for in iconic SciFi tv-series BLAKES 7 gets mentioned and it is extremely terrible in a "why did you pick that crime, BBC/Blake's 7 showrunner for the main character?"
-Someone tries to get the SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator-maintainer nominated for a 1986/1987 HUGO AWARD, category: Best Professional Editor; since the SF-LOVERS mailing list goes out to over 1200 people. The SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator-maintainer then explains, in small words suitable for children, why that would be a BAD IDEA. something something federal investigation something stealing government resources something something Hugo Awards get more press than discussion groups at Boskone conventions.
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