SFL Archives Vol 14
7.5 mb raw text file
100% completion, 104 book marks
-The 1989 Aprils Fool gimmick for the SFL Archives was that there was SFL Digests sent out the week leading up to April Fools 1989 and for a few days after. AKA No April Fools jok posts allowed in the SF-LOVERS mailing list for 1989.
1989 technology references: Vacuum welding and the real-world feasiblity of Larry Niven Known Space style mono-molecule weapons/devices.
-STAR TREK 5, BATMAN 1989 & James Cameron's THE ABYSS come out. Batman 1989 & The Abyss break brains across the SFL, while ST5 is mostly discussed for the climbing anti-gravity boots & most of the TOS cast acting out-of-character. Peter Jackson's 1989 movie BAD TASTE also gets briefly discussed.
-BATMAN 1989 breaks SFL brains by being unlike the Adam West tv series, unlike the Frank Miller Dark Knight comic series, and by starring Michael Keaton, and Jack Nicholson. The Batcave and how it exists, the Batmobile and Batplane, the heavily armored Batsuit, Bruce Wayne acting weird, The Joker's murderous gadgets,and Batman being a Ninja.
(2020 note: One SFLer made a series of posts so angry and detailed and emphatic about Batman being a Ninja that I now refer to them as NinjaExpert)
-James Cameron's THE ABYSS breaks brains in a more technical way, every third SFL Digest sent between July 1989 - early August 1989 was dedicated to the ABYSS discussion. SFLer hating the various actors, anger at SEALs not doing that in real life, Inconsistencies between the movie and the novelization, aliens, alien cities, scuba, deep sea O2 breathing mixes, and ASCII flowcharts of how diving regulators work, and a whole bunch more.
-First mention of Iain M Banks CONSIDER PHLEBAS, then discussion of Iain Banks non SF books like WASP FACTORY, etc.
-First appearance of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION BORG chat.
-Sting the musician-actor's non-DUNE movie acting work.
-One or two SFLer's think John Brunner borrowed the framing device of STAND On ZANZIBAR from John Dos Passos trilogy "USA".
-First rumors of a live action JUDGE DREDD movie, with Sylvester Stallone rumored to be in the Judge Dredd role.
(2020 note: 1989 SFLer's scoff at that idea, but....yeah. It was real, all of it.)
-Novelization of the Infocom game PLANETFALL gets one positive review.
-The Heinlein Defense Squad tries comparing Robert Anson Heinlein positively to Sir James Burton, but no-one takes the bait.
-The SFWA white knight SFL poster finally and conclusively outs themselves as editor of the fanzine OTHER REALMS, which now explains all the sucking up/worshipful references to SF&F authors, and snitching on any negative to the SFWA/anyone with editorship roles in the SF&F genres.
-Franchised out SF universes, such as Asimov's Robot City and Roger Zelazny's "Clypsis" series, all of which SFLers are certain will still be discussed/still be published 20 years down the road.
(2020 note: Yeah, that didn't happen. I think 99% of the mentioned franchised out SF universes died out within 18 months of SFL this discussion.)
-A 1989 READERCON flyer describes Samuel R Delany as the "Woody Allen of SF". This comparison aged extremely badly or extremely well depending on how you view Woody Allen & Samuel R Delany.
-A SFLer outs their fetish, TWICE, for Jack Chalker type fantasies where shape changing/physical transformation and body swapping are key parts of the story.
-SFLer's appreciating when authors put in the work to research the topics they write about in their stories (William R. Forstchen being part of a medieval reenactment catapult crew gets mentioned).
-SFLer's discuss the Penny Farthing bicycle explanation that only happened in the "lost" THE PRISONER episode
-Bad Technology in SF story discussion (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Niven Known Space, etc).
-News that 1980's TV series BEAUTY & THE BEAST starring Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman is cancelled/not getting renewed on CBS. Meanwhile the ALIEN NATION tv series & QUANTUM LEAP both premiere to mostly positive SFL reaction, and FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE TV series finally gets discussed as the final episodes of it air.
-WorldCon 1989 happens, all of the extended drama over 1989 Hugo Award illegal vote counting is quickly ignored once the physical awards come out.
-Arthurian Mythos discussion crops up again for 6 or so SFL Digests. More reference materials & lists of Arthurian Mythos works get posted.
-Daniel Keys Moran and his threatened thirty three novel series TALES OF THE CONTINUING TIME discussion.
-The Suicide of a West German Hacker involved in hacking a bunch of US government servers/sites gets a brief mention.
(2020 note: The dead hacker, Karl Koch, was one of "stars" or featured people in Cliff Stohl's mostly non-fictional CUCKOOS EGG which discussed how the hackers were detected and how the hackers were eventually arrested.)
-Portage cost for open parties at the Worldcon 1989 hotels got some SFL outrage. So did the SF-LOVERS mailing list getting a unofficial WorldCon (non-Hugo Award), however the biggest thing was very negative reactions to a female author only award being announced/premiered during the 1989 Hugo Awards ceremony.
-The Willimantic CT book publisher (Zeiss Press?) that specialized in Gene Wolfe small press runs moves across country to California in July 1989
-The Denver Post newspaper announces a new Science Fiction themed cable network television channel, to be called the SCI-FI CHANNEL
-An SFLer with way too much time on their hands did a A-Z index listing for everything in the (as of 1989) 4 book series HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams.
-Another year passes and another solitary SFL question asking if anyone, anyone at all knows if MORIGU: THE DESECRATION by Mark C Perry has a sequel.
-Dan Simmon's HYPERION, 1st book of William Shatner's TEKWAR series, WAITING FOR THE GALACTIC BUS & it's sequel THE SNAKE OIL WARS, WARDAY, THE ETERNITY BRIGADE, COLD COMFORT FARM, and ACROSS THE COSMOS being supposedly being plagiarized twice by the same person/sold to two different publishers.
-The 1989 version of BACK TO THE FUTURE series discussion focuses on Biff, and the Biff's various timelines, and BACK TO THE FUTURE 3.
-TOR Books doing a total recall & replace on Walter Jon Williams novel ANGEL STATION because of non-existent quality control.
-Fantasy and Science Fiction stories with music or musicians as core pieces of the story.
-Pop Culture Vampire & Werewolf Lore, and how to stop/cause Vampire & Werewolf outbreaks discussion.
-Request for advice on long term storage of Books in a warehouse/self-storage facility.
-1989 version of Matter transportation discussion: What is the Earliest Matter Transportation story in existence?
-A DIANE DUANE identity thief-impersonator-imposter has re-appeared and is active in the U.S.A. after a decade long break/prison time.
-The very first SFL Archives mention of BABYLON 5,the tv series about 2 years before I expected it.
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Date: 3 Oct 89 19:56:57 GMT
From: jas@isi.edu (Jeff Sullivan)
Subject: Re: ALIEN NATION - Just another cop series.
J. Michael Straczynski is trying to package a SF series of his called
"Babylon 5." He says that it will do for SF on TV what Hill Street did for
Cop stories.
We'll see. He says the financing is almost locked, and it should air next
fall.
Jeffrey A. Sullivan
Senior Systems Programmer
Information Sciences Institute
University of Southern California
jas@venera.isi.edu
jas@isi.edu
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