SFL Archives Volume 19a
486 SFL Digests in a 8.6 mb raw text dump.
100% completion, 209 bookmarks
Movies, television shows referenced: SEAQUEST DSV, VIPER (TV), SPLIT SECOND, GHOST IN THE MACHINE (anime), BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM, INFRAMAN aka SUPER INFRAMAN, FORBIDDEN PLANET, WAXWORK 2: LOST IN TIME, MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, FOREVER KNIGHT (TV),ALIEN NATION (TV), ROBOCOP (TV), DARKROOM (TV), M.A.N.T.I.S. (TV), TEKWAR (TV), ALF (TV), THE CRYPT (TV), KNIGHT RIDER 2010 (TV), BODY SNATCHERS (1993), HIGHLANDER (TV), ISIS (TV), X-FILES (TV), AMAZING STORIES (TV), ISLAND CITY (TV), MODEL BY DAY (TV), ARMY OF DARKNESS, DARKMAN, AI, CODE RED (TV), THUNDER IN PARADISE (TV), ADVENTURES OF HERCULES (TV), LIQUID TELEVISION (TV), EARTH 2 (TV), THE STAND (TV), BATMAN FOREVER, DOOMWATCH (TV), STAR TREK: TNG, THE PHOENIX (TV), MY LIVING DOLL (TV).
SF&F stories referenced: DRAGONDOOM, WOMEN ON THE EDGE OF TIME, SEEKERS MASK,STAR TREK MEMORIES, IN THE NET OF DREAMS, DARK MIRROR, TIME WARS, LIFE ON THE BORDER, THE VIRTUAL BOSS, ELSEWHERE, NEVERNEVER, TERMINAL COMPROMISE, QUARANTINE, RATS AND GARGOYLES, FREE CONTINUATION OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS, 300 YEARS LATER, TEKWAR, OUT OF THIS WORLD, A DIAMOND MASK, HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT, CARVE THE SKY, CHIMERA, SMALL GODS, THE SHEEP LOOK UP,ILLUSION, EUROTEMPS, INTO THE GREEN, MADNESS SEASON, BLACK SUN RISING, WHEN TRUE NIGHT FALLS, GLOBALHEAD, LITTLE BIG, ENGINE SUMMER, CANOPUS IN ARGOS, HERE COMES THE SUN, JUMPER, ASSEMBLERS OF INFINITY, A JUDGEMENT OF DRAGONS, THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE, THE LAST DANCER, THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR, MANHATTAN TRANSFER, CURSE OF THE MISTWRAITH, LIGHTWING, CRASHLANDER, FLARE, FOSSIL HUNTER, TALISMANS OF SHANNARA, GUILTY PLEASURES, KALIFORNIA, DEMON KNIGHT, HARD TO BE A GOD, ROADSIDE PICNIC, JEDI SEARCH, HOLLOW MAN, GOOD NEWS FROM OUTER SPACE, INTERFACE, CONSIDER PHLEBAS, HABITABLE PLANETS FOR MAN, THE PLANET STRAPPERS, STARWOLF, SIDESHOW, BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN, FACE IN THE SNOW, UNDERSTANDING COMICS.
Pop culture references: Steve Urkel, Beverly Hills 90210, Dragonlance: 2nd generation, Dragon Magazine, alt.alien.visitors, Erica Ehm the MuchMusic VJ, Kurt Loder & MTV News, Are you Being Served? (TV), Lightwave 3D rendering, Global Positioning System (GPS) as a new technology due to revolutionize travel, Betrayal at Krondor (pc game), Femme Fatales magazine, Essex House the upsale eroticia fiction publisher, SAIFAI, X-COM: UFO Defense (1994 pc game), WWW internet pages being something new and cool.
1994 Death notices: Robert Shea (SF&F author). Jack Kirby (iconic comics industry artist/writer). Raymond Z. Gallun (SF&F writer). Frank Belknap Long Jr (SF&F author).
Kicking off things for 1994, the SFL Lovers Mailing list acquires a copyright notice. This will be referenced later on when the SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator explains that they have been censoring lots of messages sent into the SF-LOVERS mailing list, and have taken it upon themselves to exclude things with copyright notices like the Del Rey Internet Newsletter.
(2021 note: That truly sucked. The Del Rey Internet Newsletter was legitimately interesting, and it's exclusion makes the SFL Archives a extremely tedious read).
-Early 1990's Macintosh computers having issues with heavy usage of elipse tagging (P.C. Hodgell's Seeker's Mask)
-SEAQUEST DSV series discussion ranging from the budget, CGI effects, the mechanicized dolphin-puppet, plots, plotholes, etc.
-A firesale offer on custom ConFrancisco 1993 SF-LOVERS t-shirt merchandise featuring artwork by Hugo-nominated artist Bob Eggleton.
-VIPER (tv-series) featuring another instance of Hollywood casting hiring non-disabled people for disabled on-camera roles
-Cordwainer Smith aka Paul Linebarger being involved in writing the Korean War armistice and Korean War defection propaganda.
(2021 note: adding this to the list of things to lookup & fact-check)
-Iain Banks supposedlyclaiming that there is one sentence in AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND that proves it is set in the 'Culture' universe.
Plus there is supposedly one or two throwaway references to LAZY GUNS in either CP, PoG, or UoW?
-THE LAST DEADLOSS VISIONS by Christopher Priest is posted to the Internet. Deadloss Visions is a rebuttal slash deep dive into the many claims and multiple failed release dates Harlan Ellison has made about Last Dangerous Visions.
-George RR Martin sells a 3 book fantasy trilogy A SONG OF FIRE AND ICE to Bantam: A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter. First book is due out around early 1996.
-Deconstructing MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, includes most commonly used words, and episode beats.
-Joe Straczynki starts posting directly to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. JMS gives lots of Babylon 5 series feedback, and very emotional lashing out when fans predict things too early, or call things low-budget, or make direct comparisons 1:1 to STAR TREK episodes. Callbacks to JMS's earlier tv work is mentioned. By the end of June 1994 JMS is in peak 'terminally online' mod and shows little signs of chilling out.
(2021 note: JMS: on the Michael O'Hare re-casting notice comes out around mid May 1994)
-A few other people involved in producing Babylon 5 start posting to the SF-LOVERS mailing list, mostly about alien race makeup in B5/makeup artist stuff.
-Lots of eye-rolling SFLer posts about Harlan Ellison being extremely full of himself. With a bonus example of how to quickly identify good tv-script dialogues in 20 seconds or less.
-The Northridge CA 1994 earthquake via the lense of the SFL Archives is first mentioned in a SCI-FI channel tour of Harlan Ellison's house, then as a contributing cause to the various stressfull things JMS encountered while season 1 of Babylon 5 was being produced. Then finally as a item of interest in internet SF&F newsletter ANSIBLE 79.
-Throw-away reference to the US 1st Nations Navajo CODETALKER role in World War 2.
(2021 note: This is one of the more interesting things about World War 2. Security through Obscurity, Security through slang.)
-TERMINAL COMPROMISE, the 1991 computer terrorism quasi cyberpunk novel comes up for discussion. TERMINAL COMPROMISE an objectively terrible book, full of dated racisms, author-insert good-guys, and galactic class stupidity start to finish. However Terminal Compromise DID manage to predict a global grounding Boeing 737 jet-airplanes.
-FREE CONTINUATION OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS by Nick Perumov and another follow-up 300 YEARS LATER.
-Tad Williams discussion. Memory Sorrow Thorn, along with other stories. Something about one particularly long book (1600 pages) being broken up into multiple paperback versions.
-Extended discussion of Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant and The Gap series. Similarly lots of discussion of Bujold's Miles Vorkoisgan series, with the same arguements used to defend the rape, assault and universe-bending to make the main characters always right/justified in every action they perform in each series.
-Dan O'Bannion's trend of ripping off AE Van Vogt without credit for O'Bannion's most well known movie scripts.
-Julian May's DIAMOND MASK comes out, and SFLers notice an immediate drop in story quality, characterization, plot, etc. SFLer's note how the titular character of the novel is more of a supporting character than main character of their own book.
-DR BILL'S SPACE COMPANY, which may or may not exist outside of an early 1994 april fools joke.
-The pornographic sex rape murder elements in the Chung Kuo books supposedly being toned down in the sequels.
-More HIGHLANDER the TV-series discussion. Various new-old immortal enemies, Duncan's love interests, swords appearing from nowhere for duels, Watchers, Hunters, what happened to disposing of decapitated immortal bodies, Richie as an immortal, Duncan's backstory, killing on holy ground, special effects during Quickening scenes, etc.
-Discussion of the now long forgotten ISIS tv-show starring Joanna Cameron who low-key starred in late 1960's - early 1970's softcore porn, featuring a team-up with the 1970's SHAZAM! tv-series.
-More Sim/Gen story discussion. This series remains weird and peak LARP material.
-ISLAND CITY, Kevin Conroy's most well-known live-acting role...discounting Conroy's voice-acting work for BATMAN: THE ANIMATED TV SERIES.
-Honor Harrington book 3 THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR comes out, and 1994 mil-scifi fans enjoy it while noting the many many flaws and tropes David Weber is cramming into every Honor Harrington story.
-The prolific writing career of Lionel Fanthorpe, who is now mostly forgotten to modern day SF&F fans.
-Various pre-Disney owned Marvel Comics movie discussion. tldr summary: they all sucked and were extremely low budget films.
-First mention of Devito/Schwarzenegger comedy teamup film TWINS.
-Robert Anson Heinlein's deeply buried embarrassing 1930's political activity: advocating for Upton Sinclair's "End Poverty in California" platform.
-The Michael Moorcock guide to writing a 60000 word fantasy novel -break it down into four 15000 word parts each of three chapters. An incident must happen every three pages to keep the reader engrossed.
-A Spider Robinson creepy sex and sexual assault defense squad appears, with one person outing themselves as part of a long running het triad.
-Arkady & Boris Strugatsky and Stanislaw Lem story discussion and comparison. Translated versions of their works discussion vs original language, what non-SovietBloc SF&F writers each author had access to when writing certain books, etc.
-The trend of "imaginary friend" Hologram characters in Scifi tv-series recently.
-The Heinlein Defense Squad appears to rehabilitate RAH's obsession on incest/eugenics, and IWFNE. The Heinlein Defense Squad has given up claiming Heinlein was able to write more than one character type for male or female characters. All good-guy male characters in Heinlein stories are RAH self-inserts, all female characters in Heinlein stories are Virginia Heinlein redheads.
-Kim Stanley Robinson discussion. Red Mars, Blue Mars, Hawaii Green party politics, etc.
-SF&F author Paul J. McAuley having a imposter trying to claim his published work.
-Harry Turtledove on writing. Historical accuracy and consistency do not apply in his work, whatever makes the story go forward is what Turtledove will write.
-Early discussion of George Lucas on what will be happening and appearing in the Star Wars prequel movies.
-An SFLer reposts an interview-response they had with Robert Jordan on his Wheel of Time series to the SFL Archives.
-DOCTOR WHO fans slowly start to realize that Jonathan Nathan-Turner was the root cause of 98% of the problems with the Doctor Who franchise.
-A interview with Raymond Feist on his RIFTWAR series is reposted to the SFL Archives.
-The tv-adaptation of Stephen King's THE STAND miniseries comes out, and SFLers discuss it. Casting choices, plot holes, differences between book and miniseries, etc.
-First mention of CFC's damaging the ozone layer in the SFL Archives. Mentioned as a side prediction of John Brunner in THE SHEEP LOOK UP.
-Sharyn McCrumb's BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN & ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL massively pissing off a bunch of SFLers, who seem themselves negatively portrayed in McCrumb's "mockumentaries of SF&F conventions" novels, while other more even-keeled SFLer's admit to seeing alot of truth in what McCrumb portrayed.
(2021 note: The extremely angry & hurt SFLers are so whiney about the contents of those two McCrumb books that reading them is now something I want to do in the near future.)
-The final episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION airs and no-one really posts about.
(2021 note: Heavy discussion of STAR TREK related properties was my major concern going into this readthrough project, which never really happened.)
-Doubleday Books violating a March 1991 settlement agreement with Ron Montana over selling copies of DEATH IN THE SPIRIT HOUSE.
-A brief recap of Julie Newmar's acting career, featuring a deep dive into one of Newmar's earliest acting roles in MY LIVING DOLL.
