Friday, September 25, 2020

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 09

 74% completion, 121 bookmarks

Not much visible progress. All the things I had previously bookmarked in Vol 11 but not mentioned before are finally listed. Was able to delete about 90 bookmarks that were duplicates of earlier bookmarks/gibberish phrases/heinlein defense squad posts/clearly stdh.txt material.

-What would be considered "normal not weird gibberish" email addresses start to appear from the BBN & Xerox arpanet nodes. (2020 note: BBN & Xerox were respectively responsible for designing slash building the Arpanet and Ethernet networking).

-Dennis McKiernan explains why his MITHGAR setting exists. (2020 note: McKiernan's explaination give background on why LORD OF THE RINGS knockoffs started appearing everywhere in the 1980's.)

-SFLer's really do not like Vonda McIntyre's novel ENTERPRISE: THE FIRST ADVENTURE. Timelines in it versus the tv-show are off, with McIntyre ignoring lots of fan-canon factoids in favor of fleshing out Yeoman Rand as the main viewpoint character of the book.

-It is pointed out that one of the main characters in Michael Moorcock's ETERNAL CHAMPION mythos is directly pulled/stolen/borrowed from a series of children's books written by E. Nesbit around 1900-ish.

-WorldCon 1986 program item "The Forgery of Mike Jittlov's Autograph" was scheduled but never happened, and a SFLer wants to know what the deal is with the forgery + autograph. 

-The BEASTMASTER movie starring Marc Singer vs Andre Norton's similarly titled book comes up again for the 30th time. No they are completely different, and Norton got no settlement money ala Harlan Ellison/Ben Bova/AE Van Vogt.  (2020 note: Marc Singer was the 1980's version of Chris Hemsworth).

-One SFLer makes the case for Edgar Rice Burroughs literally stealing the Mars/Barsoom setting  from Edwin L. Arnold. Books that did Barsoom before ERB are GULLIVER OF MARS and PHRA THE PHOENICIAN

-An SFLer complains that Isaac Asimov has been dumbing down his science columns for over a decade, and now it appears pitched at twelve-year olds and says (direct quote): "How many twelve-year-old's read F&SF, I wonder?"

(2020 note: Going from the F&SF threads on the SomethingAwful forums, the answer: MANY OF THEM. MANY MANY MANY twelve-year-old's read F&SF.) 

-Michael Moorcock being heavily connected to the band HAWKWIND and co-writing some of the lyrics of BLUE OYSTER CULT songs came up a few times.

-After being discussed at least 60 times in earlier SFL Archives Volumes, I finally get around to mentioning Sherri Tepper, mostly because Tepper's book DERVISH DAUGHTER finishes off a trilogy and has gotten mostly favorable SFL feedback

-A detailed walkthrough of the 1986 Doctor Who Experience USA Tour

(2020 note: It sounded pretty cool, and very good value for $2 in 1986 money, especially since the money the tour raised was allegedly going to local NPR stations.)

-Jim Baen responds to negative feedback about the BAEN BOOK CLUB deal mentioned in a earlier readthrough post. The Book Club deal was always was a limited 6-9 month trial, everything under that Baen Book Club deal was being sold at a loss by Baen Books, and it had a maximum member limit of 500, etc.

-The saga of the SF-LOVERS t-shirts is now complete or almost complete. The person who ran the project is discussing the packing methods/amount of t-shirt orders and all I can see in my mind is ebay sellers of the 21st century going "<snide tone>lightweight".

-Pierre Boulle's lesser known stories comes up. Stories about medical detective work to fight disease are always interesting, especially circa 2020 + COVID19.

-A technology focused SFLer talks about "gravity gradient stabilization" technology being used in space probes and satellites orbiting the earth.  (2020 note: This is definitely on my "look this up" list.) 

-An old SF fan chimes in about SF radio programs from the late 1940's and early 1950's they remember, wonders if anyone else remembers them.

-Don Woods, creator of COLOSSAL CAVE ADVENTURE is unable to find the 2 missing pages in a rumored notoriously bad reprint of Harlan Ellison's PERSISTENCE OF VISION that he owns.

(2020 note: This is Dad-joke funny because Persistence of Vision...being unable to see anything missing.....?!)

-Japanese Kajiu movies start getting discussed, with mentions of international releases adding in extra actors.

-More weird fantasy and SciFi tv-series and movies of the 1950's-1970's:

I Married A Witch

Science Fiction Theater

Commander Cody

Captain Midnight aka Jet Jackson

Flash Gordon

The Man and the Challenge

Way Out

World of Giants

Men Into Space

Far Out Space Nuts


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