SFL Archives Vol17b readthrough update 01

 100% completion, 173 bookmarks

-Movies & tv-series mentioned: HIGHLANDER THE TV-SERIES, FOREVER KNIGHT, HERMANS HEAD, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, CETACEAN, MAN FROM ATLANTIS, BATMAN RETURNS, COVINGTON CROSS, FROM BEYOND,  TANK GIRL, HUMAN TARGET (1992 tv-series), TIME TRAX, JURASSIC PARK 1993, DEATH BECOMES HER, PROJECT: SHADOWCHASER, PLAGUE 1978, STAY TUNED, HAWK THE SLAYER, MELROSE PLACE (tv-series), MISFITS OF SCIENCE, QUANTUM LEAP, WOOPS! (tv-series), KUNG FU THE LEGEND CONTINUES, MACGYVER, X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, BRAM STOKERS DRACULA, SOLAR CRISIS, PHANTOM EMPIRE (serial), FLASH GORDON (serial).

-Books & stories mentioned: THE CENTAURI DEVICE, ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, REAPER MAN, SAURONS DEFEAT, WAR DAY, THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, TALES OF POWER, AT WINTERS END, GRUNTS!, CAPTAIN JACK ZODIAC, THE BIOFAB WAR, THE LAST COIN, GARDEN OF RAMA, WORLDS ENOUGH AND TIME, JURASSIC PARK, THE FOURTH R, THE TURING OPTION, CARVE THE SKY, A REBEL IN TIME, BAD VOLTAGE, THE DEEP 1975, A MILLION OPEN DOORS, RED GENESIS, BLOOD MUSIC, 

-Pop culture references: John Boy from the Waltons, having to set binary mode for FTP downloads, Rick Springfield, tension building moments in James Bond films, Franklin Mint figurines, Spike Lee, the Karate Kid movie series, Red Sonja comics, National Unity debates in Canada, Secret Masters Of Fandom, Blockbuster Video, Brett Easton Ellis, Dan Quayle, NORB comic strip, Dick Wolf & TV Crime Procedurals, Dan Rather's KENNETH encounter, Cyberpunk Library, Back to the Future: The Ride!, CD-I systems, the Bosnian War, Wing Commander 1 (pc-game), SLP to SP modes on VCR tapes,

-SFLer unusual requests:

>Underwater Fantasies

>Post nuclear books

>Post plague fiction

>SF Detectives

>SF writers with consistent themes

>Far, far future stories

>Hong Kong SF movies

>1930's science fiction

>Science Fiction Stage Plays

>What makes a good (SF&F) Con

>Tarot SF and Fantasy

>Bio-Science within Science Fiction

>Linguistic SF

>Musical SF & F

>Characters/Books you hate to love

>SF Books that have become movies

>Rational Time Travel

>SF and Fantasy Alternate Sexuality Listings

>Thief main characters/thief stories

Death notices: Fritz Leiber

-A few more "shit-that-didn't-happen" humblebrags about SFLer's encountering non-SF&F fandom at SF&F conventions. Notable mostly because cosplaying convincingly as Avon from Blakes 7 or Vincent from the Beauty and the Beast tv-series or Sam/Al from Quantum Leap was 130% sure to get you laid at SF&F conventions.

-TSR Inc announces the business plan (50% increase in titles annually) that will have them bankrupt by mid 1994.

-A few SF&F Historians working on their PhD theses about Robert Heinlein & Isaac Asimov show up, trying to crowd-source their research/have people do their homework for them. 

-A MILLION OPEN DOORS by John Barnes is published and most SFLers like it. Meanwhile in real time, the Bosnian War enters a phase that will break John Barnes brain 6 years before 09-11-2001 does similar damage to everyone else in the SF author community.

-Misleading covers in SF&F books & discussion of the most accurate/least embarrassing SF&F artists. 

-David Brin had a insane meltdown in 1992 over Ralph Bakshi. Then had a second more insane rant about Bakshi & Censorship & David Brin always being right. Stein Sigurdsson (steinly@lick.ucsc.edu) seems to be David Brin's sock puppet account.

(2021: Both those David Brin rants have been posted in-full on this blogsite at https://nothing2seeherepleasedisperse.blogspot.com/2021/01/remember-time-david-brin-melted-hell.html ) 

-More GODZILLA & Kaiju genre movie discussion.

-Wizard of Space and Time creator Mike Jittlov posts on the SFL Archives again to complain about more piracy of his film occurring and about his nemesis organizing conspiracies versus him. This time the piracy is a 15 second clip brodcast in Russia under another name

-Marvin Minsky reappears in the SFL Archives after 7 years to promote THE TURING OPTION, a book he cowrote with Harry Harrison. Minsky shares details of what inspired the book/share FTP links to the chapters Minsky wrote that got cut from the final published version. 

-QUANTUM LEAP discussion. Most QL fans are not thrilled how series creator Donald Bellisario is changing up the formula by inserting real-life people/real events into the series. Same thing goes for the reveal of an alternate Quantum Leap program.

-With a REBEL IN TIME Harry Turtledove goes fullbore into the alternate history mil-fiction & mil-scifi stories that he will spend the next 28 yrs/80+ books writing about.

-After almost 10 years as a moderator of the SF-LOVERS mailing list, Saul Jaffe starts to life-blog about his vacations & the various SF&F themed conventions he has attended.

-The passage of the Electronic Fan Writing Hugo Ammendment at WorldCon 1992.

-Security enforcement at conventions/Tips and advice on how established SF&F conventions interact with actual Law Enforcement during conventions. Usage of radios & walkie-talkies at conventions by convention staff & convention attendees.

-More discussion of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED tv series. X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES premieries and almost everyone asks "Who is Morph?"

-HIGHLANDER THE TV SERIES discussion. Differences of the series between the movies, Adrian Paul, new crops of Immortals, Duncan being a pacifist yet happier than Connor, Joan Jett, etc

-WHEEL OF TIME discussion. Lots of detailed theories and guessing as to what plot elements/characters/lore are evolving, none of which I am going to repost here. BTW, some people guessed right.

-COVINGTON CROSS tv-series discussion, and how nothing in it makes sense other than Nigel Terry still looking good while riding horses.

(2021 note: One of Nigel Terry's most famous roles was as King Arthur in EXCALIBUR 1981.)

-THE TAEIS PROJECT:  a co-operative internally realistic shared fictional world

-SFLer's discuss what Steven Spielberg has planned for the upcoming movie JURASSIC PARK 1993. Lots and lots of CGI work is getting teased, and SFLer's start debating the "science" in Crichton's novel JURASSIC PARK.

-Computer data Disaster Recovery procedures "modern" 1992 organizations use or rather should be using. Storage rot and the need for off-site storage of data backup media & the hardware required for that data backup media is discussed.

-Jim Butcher in way at all read THE LAST COIN by James P Blaylock before coming up with his own spin on the Christian Mythos in the DRESDEN FILES. I repeat no way at all.

-Why more Slow Glass style stories never got written or published.

(2021: Someone writing into ANALOG magazine noted that the way Slow Glass worked; chipping or breaking or even erasing a Slow Glass installation would be releasing a nuclear bombs worth of energy all at once.)

-New SF&F shows HIGHLANDER THE TV SERIES, KUNG FU THE LEGEND CONTINUES, and TIME TRAXX all premiere in the fall of 1992.

-A few SFLers are getting tired of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, others are not. 

-Charles Stross randomly popped in to recommend people looking for fun SF&F fiction to check out UK SF&F author Dave Langford

-Daniel Keys Moran randomly appeared to give a status update to his fans and listed out every single story/novel/novella he planned on writing in the CONTINUING TIME series, which was around 13 novels & 20+ short stories/novellas

(2021 note: The status update also contained a very sanitized version of why the editor who worked on his books got fired from Bantam Spectra. DKM slept with his book editor, got his book editor pregnant, married his book editor, then wondered why Bantam Spectra fired his book editor 5 months after she had her(and his) baby.)

-Did you know that in the Dewey Decimal catalogue system that glass manufacture is listed under 666?

(2021 note: No idea if this is true. Deliberately not looking this factoid up until my SFL Archives readthrough project finishes.) 

-Someone posts up a timeline of how George Lucas came up with the STAR WARS setting/a timeline of the various STAR WARS movie screenplays George Lucas wrote. Leigh Brackett's screenwriting on ESB gets mentioned. The CORELLIAN ARCHIVES, a Star Wars fanzine collected started by George Lucas maintained at the Santa Barbara Science Fiction Alliance.

(2021 note: Star Wars historians probably already know about the CORELLIAN ARCHIVES. If they did not, they will after reading this.)

-Larry Niven KNOWN SPACE discussion: what did Niven mean when he described "dial controls" for the teleport disks in his KS stories. A touchpad, a feedback loop phone rotary disk, a spinning disk, etc?

-Charles Stross randomly appears in the SFL Archives 1992 to promote another UK author.

 "...relatively obscure, although he began publishing at the same time as Pratchett, but he's actually a lot closer to the British funny-bone than TP (Terry Pratchett) who has a kind of transatlantic drawl running through his books. I refer of course to Dave Langford".

-Babylon 5 casting information & Info file guides for BABYLON 5'S initial tv-movie THE GATHERING pilot episode 

(2021 note: All these will be written up in a separate post, still find the casting note about not wanting a pretty-boy actor cast for the Sinclair main character funny, given how Bruce Boxleitner was brought in just for that reason in Babylon 5 season 2) 

-AGRIPPA the self-deleting ebook cyberpunk story by William Gibson and Penn Jillette.

-Casting announcement and setting details for STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE are released to the public. SFLer's start commenting on stuff.

-1992 closes out with BOSKONE drama. More specially Boskone art show display drama vs how the rest of the world's conventions handle art show displays. The managment people behind Boskone tried to enforce their way of handling art shows at an upcoming Worldcons. As usual, any negative feedback, and suggested improvements about how Boskone/Boskone management committees handle things are taken as deadly faux pass insults. tldr: The Boskone Defense Squad are assholes in all their responses/rebuttals.

SFL Archives Vol 15b readthrough 01

 SFL Archives Vol 15b

3.4 mb raw text file

100% completion, 86 bookmarks

-SFL Vol 15b Book mentions: PHULES COMPANY, ZORK CHRONICLES, SEA OF GLASS, THE FACE OF MINE ENEMY, GAMEPLAYERS OF ZAN, WIZARD OF THE PIGEONS, RED STORM RISING, THE LEAKY ESTABLISHMENT, THE LAST WHALES, SPACE BY THE TALE, DHALGREN, TWO PLANETS, MOON PROSPECTOR, THE PUBLIC HATING, THE IRON STAR, DEATHGATE (book  series), BORDERTOWN & BORDERLAND, ISHMAEL, CYTEEN, PARTICOLORED UNICORN, PHOENIX, VAMPIRE$, JURASSIC PARK.

-Pop Culture mentions; the soap opera GUIDING LIGHT,  whatever "ERBitis" is, non-American SFLer's ask "Who is Mr. T?", Multi-User Domains (MUDs), Saddam Hussein, the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey, the EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE rpg, "California-In-Space" syndrome, the re-release of a semi-restored version of METROPOLIS 1927, BARDS TALE 1, the Chewbacca Star Wars Holiday Special, I DAMIANO the cRPG, 

SFL movie & TV series mentions: CHERRY 2000, GHOST 1990, ARANCHNAPHOBIA 1990, WICKER MAN 1973, QUEEN OF BLOOD, FLATLINERS, DARKMAN 1990, Japanese anime LENSMAN, THE FLASH 1990 tv series, the 1980's COSBY show, the SIMPSONS, MONSTERS tv series, PREDATOR 2, METROPOLIS 1927, Chewbacca Star Wars Holiday Special, IT 1990 tv-movie, DARK STAR,  ROBOT JOX, MISERY, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

-SFLer's continue to discuss the terrible and toxic behavior of fans and authors at SF&F conventions. Examples given of terrible, or inciting conduct on both sides. Jerry Pournelle gets revealed as one of the "screaming at fans/constantly drunk" bad conduct SF&F authors at SF&F conventions. 

-Discussion of EE Smith's life and SF writing career during the gold age - post World War 2 pulp SF era, while other SFLers try to explain away the creepier elements in Jack Chalker's stories, and other SFLers start seeing 10 layers of allusion and meta-commentary in Samuel R Delany's DHALGREN.

-More Raymond E Feist series chat, more Steven Brust series chat, more Bujold story chat, more Mercedes Lackey story chat, more Stanislaw Lem story chat, lots of CYTEEN theory-crafting, more gilding of John W Campbell's editorship skills driving SF to it's higher points. 

-The BOSKONE convention in Springfield MA gets downsized again for the 3rd straight year while the totally new convention ARISIA run by the same group doing BOSKONE gets 15 miles closer to the holy land aka Boston MA on year 2.

-SFLers mention the time when Scientologists alleged did a mass harassment campaign vs L Sprague DeCamp after DeCamp debunked some Scientology related concepts and beliefs.

-Paperback book pricing in 1990: $5.95

-TSR pulling a 2020 Disney tactic and deciding to not pay out royalties for any of the DRAGONLANCE sequels written by Margaret Weis & Tracey Hickman, which explains why those two suddenly started producing new not-Dragonlance/not-Star Wars fiction. SFLer's also mention Fizban, uh NABZIF? appearing in the DEATHGATE series books.

-The BBC refuses to schedule DOCTOR WHO for a 27th season in 1990, effectively putting the tv series into a timeless limbo forever.

(2020 note: Yes, I know the 1996 Paul McGann DOCTOR WHO movie happened, and that DOCTOR WHO  eventually got rebooted in 2005, however that was 6 & 15 yrs in the future, respectively.)

-Barbara Hambly grafting the DOCTOR WHO universe onto her STAR TREK novel ISHMAEL, Stephen Donaldson is quoted as mentioned that he is working on a new science-fiction trilogy called the GAP CYCLE, and a essay-introduction by  Kevin J Anderson on writing the GAMEARTH Trilogy gets reposted in full to the SF-LOVERS mailing list.

-1st casting news for THE TERMINATOR 2 comes out, along with rumors of office buildings already being leased out for movie location shooting. 

-"What defines a Cyborg?" chat kicked off by Terminator 2's announcement, which leads to STAR WARS chat, and other fiction that has humanoid robots/body part replacement, body part enhancements like eyeglasses.

-The emergence of more HP Lovecraft scholars, and modern 1980s-1990s fiction embracing the CTHULHU MYTHOS wholesale

-Jean Airey(?) allegedly being ripped off by a book publishing company and issuing a open letter about sending fans a photocopy of the work if they send her a self-address envelope with the correct postage on it.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION discussion. SFLer's were excited with Shelby and had hopes of Shelby taking the 1st officer permanently w/ Riker as the new Captain of the Enterprise 1701-C. StarFleet ships not having bombs slash nuclear missiles. The UK gets the 1st season of ST:TNG as the 4th season of ST:TNG airs in the US, and the UK SFLer reactions to season 1 are interesting reads. Certain episodes of ST:TNG being banned in the UK, like the episode with a throwaway line about Irish reunification.

-The RPG EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE having a extremely hardcore magic system that involved gouging out eyes, bathing in mothers blood, sacrificing dozens of virgins.

-A weird aside about the portraits in the recent Illustrated Guide to AMBER being the IRL people who Roger Zelazny based a bunch of AMBER series characters on....and those IRL people forming a AMBER SOCIETY SCA group and becoming next-level stalker invested in their AMBER counterparts to the point of physically shunning someone who Zelazny killed off in the AMBER stories.

(2020 note: I hope this is just next-level bullshit gossip, but I suspect not.) 

-PREDATOR 2 pre-release and post-release discussion covers lots of ground, including the Aliens vs Predator teaser, Predator hunting rules, who owned that old pistol, why the US Feds were dumb, etc.

-Requests for Vampire Fiction(alien/fantasy/Sime:Gen/future/Anne Rice/etc), Requests for Avianoid fiction, Requests for science-fiction Cosmic String stories, requests for fiction with Stasis Field elements in them, etc.

-Philip K Dick discussion in 4 parts: SFLers claim PKD threw away a financial windfall to write something else, financial windfall rumor gets hard numbers, financial windfall rumor discredited, and Vonda McIntyre closes out the entire discussion by posting a open letter from PKD's final literary agent Russell Galen about PKD's work. 

-Piers Anthony starts their own 800 number, and many of the resident SFL authors are totally cool with that seethe with jealousy.

(2020 note: 800 numbers were a big thing during the 1970s -1990s before social media & texting took away the need to call phone numbers)

-Discussion of ST:TNG spaceship battle tactics in season 3 finale had a weird aside comment about the US Air Forces experiences in Vietnam lead to tactics changes & rebirth of the TOP GUN advanced fighter plane pilot training schools 

-Extended discussion of 2 Fred Saberhagen series (EMPIRE OF THE EAST, BOOKS OF SWORDS) in ways that modern SF&F fandom debate the minutia of the GAME OF THRONES & MALAZAN series. Aka what matchup would win, did X character really die, who is this mysterious masked character, etc.

-1950's pulp SF CITIES IN SPACE series discussion, with SFLer's having fond memories of the technology & the wandering space-Okie gimmick.

-Ever since the Netherlands won the WorldCon 1990 hosting gig, Worldcon 1990 notices about how to register for it/what cool things existed there for 3 yrs.Therefore it was pretty disappointing when only one person(a Worldcon 1990 convention organizer) ended up discussing WorldCon 1990.

-Lloyd Abbey's THE LAST WHALES having "..considerable amounts of  cetacean sex, which should induce a becoming humility in all human readers.."

-ALIEN NATION the tv-series is officially cancelled by FOX, fans of the tv series start a letter writing campaign to get the decision reversed.

(2020 note: The letter writing campaign would be partially successful..two or three ALIEN NATION tv-movies happened due to the letter writing campaign.) 

-EC Tubb's DUMAREST series being brought up, again, as one of the main world-building inspirations for the TRAVELLER RPG.

-SFL reviewer-idiot Mark Leeper completely plagiarizes a newspaper career review of Ray Harryhausen from back when CLASH OF THE TITANS 1981 came out, nobody calls them on their bullshit. Meanwhile Evelyn Leeper was nominated for the 1990 Best Fan Writer Hugo for as recognition for all of her unpaid SF&F media reviewer posts across USENET.

-Return of Tolkienian discussion to the SFL Archives after 2 years of silence. SFLer's debate who delivered the killing blow on the Angmar WitchKing ShadowWraith, what Balrog's canonically look like, the mechanics of elf souls vs mankind souls and where do Tolkien half-elf souls/go when they die?

-The SFWA White Knight Chug Von Rospach was mostly absent from VOL 15B. Vonda McIntyre wiped out alot of his illusionary positionr as a SF&F authority figure when she posted the open letter from PKD's literary agent Russell Galen. However the final insult slash diss to Chuq was probably when someone asked for SF&F fanzine recommendations midway through VOL 15B and no-one, no-one at all mentioned his fanzine, OtherRealms(?).

-SFL VOL 15B closes out with Vonda McIntyre posting the first 3 or 4 pages of her 1990 novel TRANSITION to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. 

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 03

 60% completion, 130 bookmarks

1988 technology level: information from the internet about the upcoming WorldCon 1990 involving BITNET, and data being sent in NETDATA format, with IBM & VAX users needing an additional step to get & read the Worldcon 1990 data.

-A bunch of SFL Archives posters reveal their fetish for pregnancy stories, more specificly the many many science-fiction themed takes on the impregnation of Mary by God and the birth of Jesus in science-fiction stories. 

-Someone makes the strong case for Michael Moorcock being directly responsible for the British NEW WAVE of scifi/fantasy stories & authors thanks to Moorcock. 

(2020 note: That indirectly means Michael Moorcock is responsible for Brian Aldiss existing, god damn you Michael Moorcock for that. Brian Aldiss is one of my least favorite editor-authors that held so much power in the fantasy & scifi fields despite having such little talent)

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION chat died off immediately after the first 5 episodes. Tasha Yar dying caused 4 or so WTF email-posts. Then the Conspiracy episode aired and about 7 people posted about how unexpected gory the ending was.

-A whole lot of Drama about the 1988 Hugo Award "Other Forms" category kicked off by the SFWA white-knight SFLer.

(2020 note: The SFWA obsessed white-knight SFLer has done more to turn me off the SFWA & Hugo Awards than everything else I've read or previously encountered.

-BATTLEFIELD EARTH book discussion & mild chat about the weirdness surrounding L Ron Hubbard's life and published stories.

-Joining the Friends of Highgate Cemetary to be able to tour/visit the un-maintained sections of Highgate Cemetary that are 110% off-limits to public access.

-The April-June 1988 take on Robert Heinlein is "Are Heinlein's stories pornography?", which drives the Heinlein Defense Squad into overdrive defense mode. The SFWA white-knight mentions that Robert Heinlein is ill in early April 1988, and asks people to funnel all donations/get well letters/gift cards they might send to through him for some reason.

-Filk Song publisher drama that I refuse to recap.

-Official notice to the SFL Archives of a new mailing list slash usenet group dedicated to all things SOCIETY for CREATIVE ANACHRONISM 

-A possible apocryphal story about how Glenn Cook got a fantasy-scifi cover artists professional career started. Also, as of April 1988, someone claims that Frank Frazetta is terminally ill and unable to work.

-The James Tiptree Jr. posing as a man posing as a woman posing as a man posing as a woman posing as a man April Fools 1988 joke-post someone posted to the SF-LOVERS was a bridge too far and close for a bunch of SFLers given that the author had committed suicide within the past year. 

-Another SFLer lamented about 1988's crop of April Fools posts didn't live up to previous years jokes. Special mention was made of the the new arpanet node 'kremvax' joke from a few years back originally posted in another mailing list/usenet group. 

(2020 note: This joke requires some clarification. It implied that the Kremlin/USSR had gotten a VAX system hooked up to the ARPANET and was trawling for information, while the USA/USSR Cold War was still happening.)

-William Gibson's MONA LISA OVERDRIVE comes out, and Gibson fans are pleased mostly.

-The FUSE-BOX DWARF, a throwaway gag by John Bellairs

-Early career mentions of Kevin J Anderson & Neil Gaiman, showing me yet again how long certain fantasy/scifi writers have been around for.

-A story track-down request for something called Combat Football brings up lots of possible stories, and sounds a whole lot like what MUTANT LEAGUE FOOTBALL would be about 5 years in the future.

-Death notices for Clifford Simak & Robert Anson Heinlein. 

-A listing of stories & books about immortality includes the weird side note about one of the symbols of longevity in Korean myth & Korean folklore being a mushroom called "pulloch'o" that doesn't exist in the reality that humankind experiences. 

-The death notice for Robert Anson Heinlein allowed the Heinlein Defense Squad to shout-down all criticism of Heinlein under the "how dare you insult this recently dead man/visionary of SF?", and the Heinlein Defense Squad people have been using the criticism-free time to theory-craft/crowdsource bulletproof reasons why Heinlein's incest fetish and Heinlein's views on consent and sexual relationship dynamics aren't creepy and horrifying to people who didn't grow up reading Heinlein stories like the HDS did.

-Unusual SFLer story requests: A request for "stories with friendly dragons" and a request for "fantasy fiction without Quest elements" in them.

-Pre-announcement of BOSKONE 26 reveals that BOSKONE is stuck in Springfield MA for 1989 after burning all its bridges with hotels/convention centers in Boston, and sticking with a hard attendence limit of 2000 people.

-The SFL Archives "How would you design a Superman" discusion goes into various uber-person physical specs, then verves off course into redesigning pelvic bones, the cranial capacity of newborns, cloning, and mindstate snapshots/mindstate restoration in that order.

-WILLOW & BEETLEJUICE are the major Fantasy movies that have come out recently in spring 1988. Most of the SFLer's posting about WILLOW keep bringing up the Siskbert/Kael naming as take-thats to criticss, while BEETLEJUICE mostly gets ignored, except by the resident reviewer-idiot who hates it.

-Isaac Asimov branded limited theater release movies NIGHTFALL and LIGHT YEARS make it to theaters/tv, and are universally panned by every SFLer who saw them. Also, the tv miniseries SOMETHING IS OUT THERE airs on NBC, and just about SFLer who watched it takes great delight in figuratively tearing the miniseries apart.  

-Harlan Ellison chat makes a resurgence, with comments of the LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS collection STILL being in the works as of 1988, and Ellison working/not working on it. Additional items of Ellison being a thin-skinned ass at conventions towards competitors and sexual assaulting women come up. David Brin comes up as being universally terrible towards women at conventions, joining Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov as people you never want to be alone with if you are a female.   

-Someone finally points out all the poorly written characters and terrible science and nonsense plot that doesn't make sense in Robert Forward's ROCHEWORLD

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 02

 SFL Archives Vol 13

5.9 mb raw text file

30% completion, 59 bookmarks

-1988 technology level: An SFLer is theory-crafting a electronic time capsule with a variable lifespan of 50-200 years, but can't figure out the KISS timing method used to "activate" slash open the time capsule, or the long term power solution for it. A few SFLer's respond with "use radioactively decaying elements for the timer/power elements"....after all the request was for KISS methods not easy or cheap methods

(2020 note: In this case, KISS stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid", not the 1970's/80's band.)

-BOSKONE 25 happens and it is a massive karmic letdown. The BOSKONE 25 convention was kicked out of Boston after the hijinks of BOSKONE 24, and took place in downtown Springfield MA in two separate locations. The 2 SFLer's who bothered mentioning BOSKONE 25 noted the anemic attendance, lackluster scheduled convention panels, lack of costumes/cosplayers, and a utter lack of enthusiasm everywhere.

(2020 note: There was a staggering amount of drama about what happened at BOSKONE 24 & the revised convention format for BOSKONE 25 in SFL Vol 12a & 12b.)

-Flying car debate lead to discussion of STOL/VTOL aircraft and what take-off and landing requirements they require vs commercial jet aircraft & military planes.

-One of the first mentions of Ted Nelson and their masterwork COMPUTER LIB/DREAM MACHINES

(2020 note: Ted Nelson basically predicted everything about the Internet back in 1974. Yes, seriously.)

-A weird 1960's movie called THE MONITORS, brief discussion of Dean Ing's mormon-assassin survivalist series, THE JUPITER THEFT as the answer to the identify-this-story request that involved planets moving due to relativistic spacecraft speeds, 1988 book publishers doing 2020 style price rip-offs when releasing Samuel Beckett's THE LOST ONES, now long forgotten TV series PROBE and THE HIGHWAYMEN.

 -SFLer's comment on various republished/newly revised editions of Philip K Dick's work, with explanations as to why two conflicting versions of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN exist.

-Belated SFL Archives death notices for Randall Garrett and C.L. Moore.

-First SFL Archives mention of Tim Powers ON STRANGER TIDES, which most people know vis osmosis of Disney Park rides and the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies.

-RED DWARF the tv-series premieres, and most SFLer's do not like it, but seem interested enough in the premise and the episodes to keep watching it.

-1988 SFLer's comment on the fascination scifi & mil-fiction authors having with writing Nazi regime alternate history stories/book series, with various Nazi leaders in the "good-guy" roles. 

(2020 note: this trend would note stop for a while, arguably it's still going on.)

-Chuq Von Rospach, SFWA crusader, highly recommends a David Gerrold YA book. And I'm just going to wholesale quote Rospach's recommendation because it goes places.  

The third book is Gerrold's, and it's LOTS of fun. Imagine a YA book with

cussing, cannibalism, orgies, rape, torture, etc. etc. etc. Better, that

stuff is all written in so that kids probably will never see it -- and it's

one of the most fun books I've ever read from Gerrold. Probably a little

too intense for some kids, frankly, but for adults, I'd call this the

sleeper of the year (good, but generally overlooked). It's a Walker &

Company hardback, by the way, ISBN 0-8027-6688-9 (data from otherrealms

#19).

-Including ISBN codes in SFL Archives book reviews/SFL Archives book recommendations suddenly becomes a thing.

(2020 note: One of the SFLer's half-doxxed themselves as a research librarian back in January 1988, offering their help if other SLFer's needed assistance looking up books/stories/authors. Suspect the ISBN codes are SFLer's using them as a look-up source or realizing the beautiful of ISBN code lookups independently.)

-First SFL Archives mention of Richard Kadrey and their cyberpunk story METROPHAGE

(2020 note: This was fun, for various reasons. Circa 2020, Kadrey has been on the SANDMAN SLIM kick for a while, and finding out Kadrey was once able to write characters that didn't revolve around remembering old monster films/old italian grindhouse movies was amusing and informative.)

-C.S. Lewis & NARNIA discussion does the impossible, and drowns out attempts at reviving Robert Heinlein chat, JRR Tolkien chat, AND Stephen Donaldson chat. Narnia and CS Lewis discussion brings up various things, with the christianity ting and JRR Tolkien maybe converting CS Lewis to Christianity coming up.

-The Vonda McIntyre Internet mentioned in SFL Vol 12 readthrough update 01 happens, and some of Vonda McIntyre's more pertinent replies get requoted. McIntyre wrote a STAR TREK novel that focused on the well-known TOS crew as they gradually moved towards serving together on the NCC-1701 Enterprise. SFL & Star Trek fan reaction to that novel was rough to extremely angry when it came out and got reviewed.

(2020 note: McIntyre revealing in the inteview that she relied exclusively on material from Gene Roddenberry and George Takei when coming up with character backgrounds and character names was very very amusing given the very angry reactions from SFLer's about not using fan-canon first names for TOS cast members.)

-ARTHURIAN MYTHOS chat comes up, without any outside influence such as a recent Arthurian mythos movie, or book. Heavy discussion of Arthurian Mythos characters, modern authors takes on Arthurian Mythos, and lots of sources and reading list recommendations for Arthurian Mythos connected works.

(2020 note: Most of these posts are probably old news for Arthurian Mythos devotees, however some of the posts might contain new material or now-forgotten source material.) 

-A SFLer wants to know how fact-based David Drake's HAMMERS SLAMMERS stories are, especially regarding Iridium as being used as armor/construction material in the Slammers hover-tanks. Various SFLer's response, citing Iridium as plausible, but also taking note of the various IRL issues with the Hammer's Slammers company, and the stacked writing David Drake used in the Hammers Slammers stories. 

-APRIL FOOLS DAY 1988, and the SFL Archives April Fools Day jokes/fake news/posts. A slight "no that was a joke" backlash occurs when the SF-LOVERS mailing list maintainer joins in the fun with a "LAST ISSUE/we're getting shutdown due to the U.S. Government" post.

-An SFLer requests U.S. Civil War science-fiction stories. And gets some feedback, including another SFLer giving U.S. Civil War stories recommendations in a Southern American accent for their entire post, including their name.

(2020 note: Harry Turtledove would  go on to fulfill this request for U.S. Civil War science-fiction stories for at least 2 decades.)

SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 04

 83% completion, 70 bookmarks

-Ralph Bakshi and his habit of ripping off other artists without credit. Vaughn Bode & NEKRON-99, Holst, Ian Miller, etc. 

-Most of Alan E Nourse's stories being set in a "Hospital Earth" universe, where Earth is one of the few planets that has thought of medicine and medicine is Earth's ticket into the galactic community. (2020 note: Very ironic circa 2020. And yet...given all the various terrible things that 2020 has delivered,...still very possible.)

-DREAM GAMES (the sort of direct sequel to WARGAMES 1983), terrible movie BIOHAZARD, the SF stories of Ian Wallace, THE LEAGUE OF GREY EYED WOMEN, terrible movie SUPERGIRL, George RR Martin WILD CARDS anthology discussion. Raymond Chandler supposedly writing a few fantasy stories before his death, belated A. Bertram Chandler death notice.

-IMAX discussion. What theaters have IMAX circa 1987, the history of IMAX, various IMAX movies regularly shown at various museums/IMAX installations, the limitations of IMAX films, everything IMAX hardware related coming from one Canadian(?) company.

-Robert Heinlein chat pt 95: Comparison's of Heinlein's default viewpoint characters.The lost juevinile stories of RAH. TMIAHM: are earthers or the loonies the real barbarians? Women's equality Heinlein character defense. Heinlein writing on homesexuality. SFLer's dropping way-too-revealing details defending Heinlein such as: "I was a feral kid, Heinlein's work in many ways raised me (instead of my parents)". or "I am in a group marriage, and see no problems with Heinlein".

-EE Smith discussion. For the most part, even the majority of 1987 SFLers found them terrible and beyond sexist and wooden and r=a=c=i=s=t. The skeevy thing about inbreeding in the Lensmen books comes up and up and up, much like the people in 1987 & now reading about Smith's view on race, gender equality, you name it, it all dated super-bad by 1987 and even worse to a 2020 reader of EE Smith's work.

-Orscon Scott Card writing the script for the ANIMATED STORIES FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON....source is a SFLer who read an ad for it in the University of Utah student newsletter.

-C.S. Lewis NARNIA chat. SFLer's reminscing about the series, the hidden or not so hidden Christian analogues in the Narnia stories. Talking animals without sin, no concept of whatever "a neevil" is. Arguing about who died in the Narnia stories, who got too old to return to Narnia, etc. The SFLer who thinks they know LORD OF THE RINGS lore better than J.R.R. Tolkien is pulling the same crap here. 

-First mention of ROADSIDE PICNIC by the Strugastki brothers in the SFL Archives.

-SFLer's briefly start to theory-craft the PERFECT CREATURE that could live in the most environments of the universe, as it exists circa 1987, as possible.  (2020 note: I nominate HP Lovecraft's Shoggoth.)

-STAR TREK 4 nitpicking...why didn't the universial translator work on the alien vs the alien cloud thing in TOS episode Metamorphis, why there is Klingon markings on Romulan ships, etc. plus normal STAR TREK: TOS nitpicking about Khan, the Eugenics war, time travel, etc.

-BOSKONE 25 update. The NEFSA finally releases their "we are burned and shrinking all future Boskone's. Here's what is changing" letter. Anger of SFLer's at being excluded fades, now chat on the subject has morphed into how SFLer's would run SF&F conventions, ignoring many things like licensing fees and state labor laws in the process.

-Harlan Ellison chat pt 37a: Harlan Ellison career trivia. Ellison's continued issues dealing with Hollywood. Harlan Ellison has no money because it all goes to cover lawyer fees. Harlan Ellison is loaded and sues out of righteous fury. Lawsuit Settlement money. Harlan Ellison cleverly cornering the market on audiobooks of Harlan Ellison's stories by cutting out all the middle-men and voicing/producing/selling the cassette tapes(audiobooks) via mail-order or direct phone calls.

-First mention of WHITE DWARF magazine in the SFL Archives. White Dwarf is/was the magazine Games Workshops ran/runs as a loss-leader to promote their line of wargaming products/supplemental materials for wargaming.

 -1987 FAKE NEWS or FACT? Secondhand report of a Santa Cruz CA health food restaurant, McDharma's being sued to death by McDonalds over name similarities. The upcoming 1988 movie COMING TO AMERICA will have a similar sideplot going on with McDowells.

Don’t forget that McDonald’s is nothing like McDowell’s. While McDonald’s has the golden arches, McDowell’s has the golden arcs. McDonald’s has the Big Mac, but McDowell’s has the Big Mick. They both have two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions. But McDonald’s buns have sesame seeds. McDowell’s buns have no seeds. 

-CODEX SERAPHINIANUS comes up again. SFLer's who have copies of it relate their efforts to decode it, one SFLer goes deep into the national library system (including microfilm hunts) looking for details on it, and one SFLer starts going conspiracy theory/"what-does this mean??" when finding a cut-out from a magazine "31" in the backcover of their copy.

-The murder-suicide details of Alice Bradley Sheldon aka James Tiptree Jr's get revealed to the SFL Archives.

-Barry Warsaw from the US National Bureau of Standards (aka the NIST) wants to crowd-source the naming convention/names for the next cycle of computer workstations coming into the US National Bureau of Standards, and asks the SF-LOVERS mailing list for suggestions. 

-Joan Vinge and her work discusion pt 3. A looooooong article about Joan Vinge is posted to the SFL Archives, so long that it takes up 4 complete SFL digests, and the beginning of a 5th SFL digest.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION stuff. David Gerrold roles the dice on getting a better contract with Paramount and Gene Roddenberry over his ST:TNG  work. SFLer's start doubting on why WESLEY CRUSHER exists in ST:TNG, and how much a drag Wesley Crusher will be in the ST:TNG episodes. Finally the casting announcements for the ST:TNG cast comes out, and you can see exactly where Gene Roddenberry's skeeviness intervened in the casting decisions.

(2020 note: The May 1987 SFLer's were on the right track regarding Wesley Crusher. ST: TNG casting announcements & Gene Roddenberry skeeviness explained: the 3 previous acting roles/movies attributed to Marina Sirtis in the ST:TNG casting announcement all featured toplessness+ from Marina Sirtis.)

-FIASCO by Stanislaw Lem. 

(2020 note: Buy FIASCO ASAP, read it. FIASCO throws away dozens of plot-points, situations, and technology concepts that SF authors following in his wake have expanded into pentalogies  of content.)

-Banned books discuusion thanks to a few SFLer's noting that Florida Bay County School added a book to their regional banned book list, with other SFLer's responding with what other books have been banned in the USA, previously or right-now circa 1987.

List of banned books follows to close out this readthrough update summary.

Three Comedies of American Life

Shane

The Great Gatsby

A Separate Peace

The Red Badge of Courage

A Farewell to Arms

Intruder in the Dust

Lost Horizon

Oedipus Rex

Watership Down

Deathwatch

Death Be Not Proud

Animal Farm

Tale Blazer Library

Best Short Stories

Twelfth Night

Arrangement in Literature

After the First Death

The Crucible

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Long Day's Journey Into Night

The Outsiders

The Pearl

Fahrenheit 451

Alas, Babylon

The Prince and the Pauper

The Emperor Jones

Winterset

The Man Who Came to Dinner

The Little Foxes

The Glass Menagerie

Mister Roberts

A Separate Peace

Adventures in English Literature

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies (Casebook Edition)

The Call of the Wild

Great Expectations

The Canterbury Tales

Brave New World

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Merchant of Venice

Player Piano

In Cold Blood

The Inferno (Ciardi translation)

Promethius Unbound

Oedipus the King

Hippolytus

King Lear

Ghosts

Miss Julie

On Baile's Strand

Desire Under the Elms

Wuthering Heights

Hamlet

Major British Writers

Growing Up

A Raisin in the Sun

The Old Man and the Sea

To Kill a Mockingbird

Exploring Life Through Literature

The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles

McTeague

The Fixer

Of Mice and Men

Never Cry Wolf

About David

I am the Cheese

SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 03

61% completion, 50 bookmarks.

-William Shatner shares his concept pitch for STAR TREK 5 in a 1987 interview with PLAYGIRL magazine. (2020 note: Maybe 1 in 5 of the ideas in William Shatner's concept pitch made it into the 1989 STAR TREK 5 movie.)

-April Fools Day jokes, 1987 edition: The meta-joke is 99% of the April Fools jokes getting sent out on March 30th & 31st 1987, with their original sent dates of a week or two back. One Aprils Fool email manages to successfully troll people into angry responses. Robots are serious business and Isaac Asimov/Fred Saberhagen fans repeatedly throw down challenge gauntlets vs each other and the April Fool's joke emailer.  

-More BOSKONE discussion. Sometime in late March 1987, the Boskone management committee (NEFSA) sends out a requirements-for-entry to 1988's upcoming BOSKONE 25, and roughly 90% of the people who attended previous Boskone conventions would be excluded from attending Boskone 25. The SFLers who attended previous Boskone's/planned on attending Boskone 25 are extremely angry about being pre-excluded, which goes against many of the tenets of SF fendom is about. IE being a open, non-judgemental and welcoming lot to everyone who likes SF.

The people for shrinking BOSKONE conventions in scope are mostly NEFSA members, and resort to personal attacks on the most vocal opponents of shrinking Boskone conventions. From a 2020 standpoint, the NEFSA people never flat out say "We are extremely burnt out and could not handle dealing with as many people that attended BOSKONE 24. Therefore the next Boskone convention, Boscone 25, is shrinking massively in scope.", which would have immediately ended the anger postings of the SFLer's against BOSKONE 25 shrinking in scope and may have added dozens of now-eager-to-pitch-in volunteers to the BOSKONE 25 infrastructure. 

BTW, The requirements list to attend BOSKONE 25 has a lot of staggering  "wait a second, this convention ran 24/7, and they weren't doing basic things like restricting access/requiring convention badges to be displayed at all times/having a no alcohol on convention floor rules before?" things in it.

-Someone posts a 3 part STAR WARS 3 movie draft that is 100% fan-fiction under the guise of stolen draft notes from Skywalker Ranch, and yet this 1987 Star Wars fan-fiction is better plotted and thought out than George Lucas managed to do regarding STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH.

-Roger Zelazny fans keep comparing his LORD OF LIGHT, and CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS together. (2020 note: I had absolutely no recollection of CoLaD even existing before reading about it in the 1987 SFL Archives.)

-Books/Authors SFLers recommend: A VOYAGE TO ACTURUS (David Lindsay), the novella FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (Daniel Keyes), SOAP OPERA (Alan Nelson), THE BIG U (Neal Stephenson), IN THE DRIFT (Michael Swanwick), KITEWORLD (Keith Roberts), THE SILENT TOWER (Barbara Hambly), THE UPLIFT WAR (David Brin), and the works of Doris Lessing. 

-Timothy Leary, desperate for attention slash validation as a guru in the 1980's, glooms onto the Cyberpunk movement as his new meal-ticket.

-Racism in the STAR WARS movies and what source's George Lucas ripped off making STAR WARS. Examples given like: Droid's being inferior, Chewbacca slave-subservient to Han Solo, Lando being a traitor, everyone hating Jawa's (even droids). HIDDEN FORTRESS, THE SEARCHERS, HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, THE DAMN BUSTERS, etc.

-More death notices for 1987. SciFi author James Triptree Jr aka Alice Bradley Sheldon. Terry Carr, SciFi editor. Patrick Troughton, most famous for being the 2nd DOCTOR WHO actor. Gardner F Fox, DC Comics writer/SF author.

-Anime discussion intensifies in April 1987. Summer Macross 1984, many anime series I'm not bothering transcribing here, seeking out the hidden "Japantown's" in American cities with large Japanese populations to score manga & non-dubbed Japanimation movies. 

-I finally notice that the Leeper Clan (Evelyn & Mark) has started putting copyright notices on their surface-level-at-best "reviews" of all things SciFi & Fantasy they come across. 

-Montague Summers, UK priest that also wrote encyclopedic reference books on supernatural entities across the world, allegedly so that if they were real, the Church would know exactly what was needed to kill them. THE VAMPIRE: HIS KITH AND KIN, THE VAMPIRE IN EUROPE, THE WEREWOLF, etc. 

-SFLer's wonder why is STAR WARS obsessed with showing only one-biome planets. (2020 note: How quickly people forget Dagobah the Mud (Half-water/Half Forest) planet.) 

-SFLer's start discussing THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert W. Chambers, with the tonal shift of the first half of the stories vs the last half reliably confusing the hell out of non-Victorian era readers reading the King in Yellow for the first time.

(2020 note: THE KING IN YELLOW is the one book I am shocked that Philip Jose Farmer DID NOT attempt to vulture in on. I mean, Farmer vultured in on Vonnegut, and HP Lovecraft and many others....wait a sec. Holy crap. I see it now. The RIVERWORLD series. That was Philip Jose Farmer's take on the KING IN YELLOW....and yes, reading all the Riverworld books did drive me insane.) 

-SFLer's start bringing their worst SciFi movie of all time? Many extremely terrible SF themed movies get brought up,  however I will only bother listing ZARDOZ.

-Initial casting notes for STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION get leaked.  Captain Julian Picard, Lt. Tanya Yar, and you can feel the Gene Roddenberry skeeviness level kick in when it gets to Beverly Crusher and "

BEVERLY CRUSHER -- Wesley's 35 year old mother.  She serves as the chief medical officer on the Enterprise.  If it were not for her intelligence, personality, beauty and the fact that she has a natural walk of a striptease queen, Capt. Picard might not have agreed to her request that Wesley observe bridge activities; therefore letting her son's intelligence carry events further.

-MAX HEADROOM the tv-series discussion. The differences between the BBC pilot episode of MAX HEADROOM vs the American tv-series, what got dumbed down, locations reshoot or totally removed in the American version, and what actors carried over from the BBC pilot episode, and how MAX HEADROOM themselves got less-edgy from when they were doing Coke ads, or interviewing pop-culture celebrities like David Bowie, etc.

(2020 note: The interviewing pop-culture celebrities stuff reminded me of SPACE GHOST: COAST TO COAST. And now I want SPACE GHOST: COAST TO COAST to be revived ASAP, with Space ghost interviewing cans of Fanta or Youtube personalities or TikTok people.)

SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 02

 39% completion, 40 bookmarks

-Evelyn C. Leeper posts an exhaustive POV-review of attending BOSKONE 24. Buried in this POV-review was that going forward Boskone 25 & all future Boskone conventions will be massively cutting down on the big media presentations Boskone conventions are known for in favor of emphasizing the literature, art, and fan elements of "normal SF&F conventions".

 Does the organization running Boskone have the obligation to keep the big media presentations that made earlier Boskone conventions such must-attend events?  Vs "what would smaller less professionally run conventions do given the same circumstances" discussion.

A few attendees/big media organizers of earlier Boskone conventions respond to the E. Leeper review Boskone 24 saying Boskone built up a rep doing big media presentations/many people attended Boskone solely to watch the slate of movies & tv-series that Boskone conventions air on-site.

Responses on this trickle in through at least mid-March 1987. Regardless of their stance on downsizing Boskone, or preferring professionally run conventions vs 100% volunteer conventions, everyone agrees that aa future Boskone PR releases/pre-ticket sales for BOSKONE 25 better mention the deemphasizing on big media presentations OR ELSE...fans will riot (worse than they already do partying at previous Boskone's).

-More than a few 1987 SFL Digests devoted strictly to the DERYNI series by Katherine Kurtz shows that Ursula Le Guin's underhanded attempt to gank a competitor had little long-term impact.

-SFLer's correct people who conflate the ALAN QUATERMAIN fantasy adventures & the QUATERMASS SF serials are about the same person, but just renamed for International markets. They are not.

(2020 note: I admit to being one of the people who conflated the two series (damn that almost identical name), then the SFL Archives let me know I was being an idiot.)

-Terminology discussion over SF vs SCI-FI vs SKIFFY fandom terms intensifies with multiple SFL Digests dedicated to hashing over meanings and intent and dismissive reactions fueling more splintering of SF fendom. Plus I learn a new new terms like SER-FEN, SER-CONS (Serious fans/Conventions). Some STAR TREK fans prefer being referred to as Trekkies or Trekkers or Trekists,etc. 

(2020 note: All of this terminology discussion is very passionate and has remained a running topic of discussion ever since 1987 started, and I do not see terminology discussion dying away anytime soon).

-SFLer's have an evil-genius idea of creating SF Literature course assignments dedicated to comparing Cordwainer Smith's NORSTRILIA to Frank Herbert's DUNE. 

-A 1987 SFLer is tired of computers in the DOCTOR WHO series always being bad, and wonders if it is a legacy of the tv-show being created at the peak of Cold War nuclear war fears, or if computers are a easy punching target.

-One of the weirder characters in the 1st THIEVES WORLD shared fantasy world anthology novel gets discussed by 1987 SFLer's. The many implication factors and weirdness of Lythande the cross-dressing Blue Mage, created by Marion Zimmer Bradley. SFLer's keep comparing Lythande to Red Sonja, and the many creepy implications in the backstory  Roy Thomas created for Red Sonja.

-Stovington Preparatory Academy being one of the more obscure cross-references linking late 1970's - 1980's Stephen King stories together. (2020 note: this would qualify as a good JEOPARDY final question.)  

-The first appearance of government coverups of UFO's conspiracy theories in the SFL Archives. 

(2020 note: I expected more of a reaction than what happened. Instead it was just two people parachuting into the SF-LOVERS mailing list trying to drum up interest and then bailing out when no-one globally responded to them.)

-Tanith Lee has been consistently recommended to fantasy genre fans ever since SFL Vol 01, I just never got around to mentioning her work before until some SFLer described one of her series "the flat earth series" . 

-Discussion of what is the worse Robert Heinlein story ever written. SFLer's respond with replies going across the entire gamut of Robert Heinlein's writing career.

(2020 note: Charles Stross, John Scalzi, and John Ringo, who have all written/rewritten Heinlein stories would disagree with everyone posting on this subject.)

-Death notice for Richard Sapir, co-creator of the THE DESTROYER series pulp martial arts-men's adventure novellas.

-BUSSARD RAMJETS maybe being impossible in real life, as per a  3rd hand report about a Usenet person named Gary Allen checking R.W. Bussard's original paper on the subject and finding errors in it.

-SFLer's discuss the final book in the GANDALARA CYCLE written by Randall Garrett and his wife.  (2020 note: The Gandalara Cycle was a serviceable total-ripoff of the BARSOOM/JOHN CARTER stories, however the final book shit the bed hard. Having it take place in the distant past, and the Mediterranean Sea reveal was bad, even before it went with the "we will climb out of the Mediterranean basin over generations and evolve into future homo-sapiens" ending. 

-LOOKING BACKWARD by Edward Bellamy, a 1888 futuristic utopian SF/fantasy book about what a transported through time main character discovers in the far future.  

-First mention of Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD series in the SFL Archives, with the SFLer really enjoying EQUAL RITES, and noting that Fantasy addicts will probably enjoy the (parodic content in) COLOUR OF MAGIC & LIGHT FANTASTIC.

 -A article from the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper about the in-production movie SPACEBALLS, with a description of how a certain scene is being shot and a brief interview with Mel Brooks about Spaceballs. 

-KNIGHT LIFE by Peter David, a reimagining of the Arthurian Mythos taking place in the 1980's, with all the expected Arthurian Mythos betrayals/drama/etc.  

-The HORSECLAN series is brought up by SFLer Bruce. Says that the Horseclan series is readable fun SF, but then mentions tackiness levels similar to GOR, before going on to mention the flashback within a flashback within a flashback with a flashback the author uses to pad out the word count of sequels.

-Roger Zelazny fans note the DAMNATION ALLEY movie adaptation as being why Zelazny stopped selling the movie rights to his work. 

-A rare mention of German language SF&F. Wolfgang Hohlbein and their DER STEIN DER MACHT series. 

-Dean Koontz used to be known for writing SF stories, 1986-1987 marks Koontz's shift into suspense-horror stories.

 -Review of a new DISNEYLAND park ride called STAR TOURS, which takes guests on a STAR WARS tour to the planet Endor. (2020 note: The review contains things that are mostly of interest to amusement Park ride fans, and amateur Disney Kingdom historians.)

-A director, production company, and a few actors are signed up for an movie adaptation of George RR Martin's NIGHTFLYERS novella.

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 04

-John Varley's short stories "THE BARBIE MURDERS", "PRESS ENTER" and "MILLENIUM" keep getting mentioned. From a 2020 perspective, John Varley's stories and writing aged better than Spider Robinson's work but not by much. 

-People can see the seams where Orson Scott Card's 1977 short story Ender's Game got Bloater-Drive expanded into the 1985 award winning novel ENDERS GAME.

-Female writers across multiple genres, and feminist SF gets discussed with Joanna Russ's HOW TO SUPRESS WOMEN'S WRITING getting prominently mentioned

-Isaac Asimov's creepy interactions with women gets brought up repeatedly as Fall 1985 hits. A particularly poorly aged Asimov penned article in the BOSKONE 22 program guide gets brought up. tldr...Asimov probably most definitely sexually harassed Shawna McCarthy out of her job as editor-in-chief of a little known SciFi magazine called "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine". Keep in mind, this is 1985 SFL posters saying the Asimov Boskone 22 article aged poorly and to further clarify things Boskone 22 happened back in February 1985.

-Scientology starts getting discussed. Much EL RON HUUUUBBBBARRRD weirdness. A weirdly specific promotion contest for the upcoming BATTLEFIELD EARTH movie, to be filmed in Colorado.

(2020 sidenote: There was only one Battlefield Earth movie made, the year 2000 one starring John Travolta. It appears that Battlefield Earth was stuck in development hell for a long long time. For additional amusement factor, think of all the amazing books/book series with optioned movie rights that have been stuck in development limbo forever. Like STARS MY DESTINATION, old-man KING CONAN, CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, CONSIDER PHLEBAS, etc. Now remember that the GOR series managed to have a real movie made starring real Hollywood actors....queue infinite Tidus from Final Fantasy X laugh).

-Really angry feedback happens when the 1985 SFLer whose gimmick is posting 800+ word essays on the "THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE FICTION TODAY" says that Spider Robinson is a hack writer (2020 take: TRUTH), and that Samuel R Delany's DHALGREN is over-rated. 

-A SFLer in 1985 manages to predict both the clone army Kill Order 66 gimmick and the Robot Drone armies in the STAR WARS prequel movies.

-Lack of new STAR WARS content has people Zapruder film analyzing Ewok cuteness levels, the uselessness of Storm Trooper armor, ammo clips vs charge-paks on blasters, whether or not blasters are energy weapons vs explosive projectiles, and how lightsabers really work (super polished mirrors, plasma and extending rigid mono-filaments get mentioned)

-A 1985 Paramount Studios press release giving the general real outline of STAR TREK 4 comes out, and ruins the vicarious fun of peoples wild-ass guesses about Star Trek 4's plot.

-A interesting recap-summary of the talk Ellen Asher of the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) gave at a meeting of the New Jersey Science Fiction sometime in 1985. The recap summary mentioned the 7 different genre book clubs Doubleday had running at the time, and how book of the month selections were made, etc.

-Differences between the American & UK editions of the HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY books come up. It is mostly changes to what brand of cars people owned, the names of the Krikkit gate-key items, and Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged insults.

-Bookstore chains B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks (people who grew up in the USA during the 1980s & 1990s will remember these names) versus independently owned bookstores...lots of interesting sounding regional independent bookstores that may/may not/probably do not exist anymore.

-SFL Archives technical minutia chat including the origins of the SF-LOVERS mailing list and the real paranoia one of the longest running SF-LOVERS moderator had about getting called up before a Congressional committee headed by William Proxmire regarding SF-LOVERS leeching from US Government resources.

-DOCTOR WHO had a extended 18 month hiatus announced earlier in 1985 that threatened to be a permanent series ending hiatus. Mail in efforts, call in efforts to the BBC, and elected British officials got the hiatus window shrunk. One of the downsides or bonuses of the SFL Archives read-through is witnessing hubris destroying and wrecking more and more bits of the Doctor Who franchise every time John Nathan-Turner opens his mouth and drives away more Doctor Who actors, writers, budget planners.

-First mention of the TEENAGE NINJA MUTANT TURTLES comic book in the SFL Archives, the TNMT cartoon series most people are familiar with happened much later

-HARMONY GOLD. MACROSS SAGA. ROBOTECH. HARMONY GOLD. CAPTAIN HARLOCK. Waves of people chiming into add that Robotech is a mere bastardization of 3 different Japanese animation series. Harmony Gold seriously wants their Gold.

-New Robert Heinlein book "THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS" gets released and ties everything Heinlein has ever written closer together, which some Heinlein fans like and other people just groan about. Lazarus Long openly acting like the literal mother-fucking douchebag he is makes some of the Heinlein defense squad turn in their "I HEART EVERYTHING HEINLEIN" badges.

-A few SFL edgelords get offended by all the feminist SF being mentioned and start trolling the feminist SF discussion thread by confusing who is a female writer and claiming that GOR and Heinlein are peak feminist SF.

-Steven Brust quits his job that has ARPANET access to become a full-time writer. Farewell SKZB, I will not miss you.

-The 1985 AMAZING STORIES tv series, the 1980's TWILIGHT ZONE reboot, and 1980's Alfred Hitchcock Presents tv-serials all come out around the same time and get discussed heavily. Amazing Stories has amazing visuals but not so much amazing plots or storytelling. 2020 take: this was where Steven Spielberg encountered a rare setback in his career (cashing out on the Medal of Honor videogame series before it hit big was Spielberg's 2nd setback). It turns out producing tv movies under contract is hard, especially since John Landis fucked up everything regarding child-actors with the Twilight Zone movie and malicious negligence lawsuits.

-The SHAVER MYSTERY aka a variation of the HOLLOW EARTH CONSPIRACY THEORY gets mentioned in detail because Richard Shaver was a 1940s scifi writer.

-How to get published as a new SF&F writer part 3: a daisy wheel ink-cartridge worth of SFL self-doxxed authors chiming in to give advice, conflicting advice, overriding conflicting advice and patronizing humble brags.

-A proposal to put the SF-LOVERS mailing list onto microfiche to preserve it for future study. Pretty sure the NSA already has that covered for you, 1985 person.

-Stephen King/Richard Bachman stories get discussed more, THINNER is the latest Stephen King written book being discussed as 1985 closes out

-The variety of mono-sex societies in fiction. Either all female societies, or all male societies, maintained via cloning, artificial insemination, or physical separation after birth to all male/all female zones. Outside forces usually arrive and hijinks happen but not like the creepy shit Star Trek:TNG got up too.

-Greg Bear's past few books (EON, INFINITY CONCERTO, etc) haven't impressed anyone posting about them in the SFL in 1985 and some people wonder if Greg Bear has peaked already or just hit a very very rough spot in his career.

-The movie ENEMY MINE based on a novella of the same name comes out at the very end of 1985. One of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION's best episodes, Darmok, "heavily" borrowed from Enemy Mine.

-"Do decompressing human bodies in outer space explode, implode or other"? discussion...2001 the movie is the main reference point for this discussion

-A insane seeming story about the last fertile man on Earth after a nuclear accident called MR ADAM by Pat Frank. This is how MR ADAM first got mentioned in the SFL

quote:

One of the secretaries here was talking about a book she read called
MR. ADAM. It was apparently written in the late 40's and concerned
a nuclear accident which left the male population of the earth
sterile, except for one man. As she explained it, the book
concerned the government's efforts at repopulation via this one man.

BTW, she said the book was hilarious. (Anyone with a pointer to
finding a copy?)

And that wraps up SFL Volume 10 summaries for me, at least regarding weird, bizarre, horrifying and retroactively interesting things in it.

originally posted September 2nd in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 01

-The Kindle I use to read the SFL Archives decided to suicide itself during yet another blowjob hagiography review of Spider Robinson at the 2% mark in SFL Vol 10, and I didn't blame it.

(sidenote 2020:  In my free time waiting for a replacement Kindle device, gave Spider Robinson's work a re-read after dissing him hard last in my previous SFL Archives read-through posts, because maybe I'd been too harsh towards Spider Robinson previously?)

 -Lots of David Eddings BELEGARIAD discussion, lots of Piers Anthony story discussion, and lots of Spider Robinson story discussion

2020 joke: <Jeopardy buzzer: Alex, what is "Authors whose work aged beyond hyper-badly for $800?" 

Alex Trebek: "CORRECT." >

2020 Joke Explainer: Giving Spider Robinson's work a re-read was a big mistake. Repeated instances of outright sexual assault, jailbait, underaged date rape, non-consentual bdsm, date rape, rape, etc in all of Spider Robinson's short stories & novels.

-Frank Herbert's Dune series continues to be discussed, not so much the DUNE 1984 movie. Much SFL internal amusement comes from reposting an old interview excerpt where Frank Herbert says: "I'm still against the idea of sequels in principle, because it's like watering down your wine all the time until you're left with just water." This is extremely funny given how many Dune sequels/prequels have come out since 1999.

-Piers Anthony had only released 8 XANTH books up to this point in 1985...<shakes head in 2020>...and most of the 1985 SFL readers demand more Piers Anthony stories. More discerning SFL posters noticed that each new Xanth book has upped the perv-factor with female characters in them getting dumber, and younger. 

-someone posts about the 1985 convention BOSKONE 22 being terrible on multiple levels (massively overcharging one-day pass people, overcrowded, terrible panels, worse film schedule, actively hostile venue, etc) with other SFL posters chiming in agreeing. One of the Boskone 22 organizers posts a big-ass "how fucking dare you" crocodile tears effort post that fails to address any of the complaints many SFL people posted about re: Boskone 22.

-Robert Forward's ROCHEWORLD gets held up as a model of good hard science fiction writing, which uh as a first time reader of Rocheworld and it's sequel 2 weeks ago in 2020, I can firmly say; HELL NO. Rocheworld was not good or hard science fiction beyond the light-sail setup.

-book publisher f**kery pt 47: Diane Duane's (who I had never heard of before or totally forgotten about (I really didn't read YA fiction growing up)) book 2 of a existing series comes out, which leads into a digression about book publishers (Dell) cancelling entire print runs, Ballantine Books dying, books being stuff in publishing limbo, Bluejay Press taking up the copyrights, and Bluejay Press as usual utterly f**king up the release dates of books.

-BLUEJAY PRESS is or rather was the anti-matter version of BAEN BOOKS. Bluejay Press  seemed to have good talent scouts and signed lots of amazing in retrospect fantasy & SciFi authors but could never release a book on time, usually missing their own publishing dates by 4 months or more. Meanwhile, Baen Books was the complete opposite in every way.

-pt 57 of me realizing how f**king old/how long certain authors have been around for. Example: George RR Martin & Stephen Donaldson were mentioned as promising up-coming talented authors when the SF-LOVERS mailing list started up in late 1979....this time circa 1984 it's Mary Gentle and Somtow Sucharitkul.

-Theodore Sturgeon death notice (RIP)

-20th century fox (rip, lol disney buyout) tries to get a rocky horror picture show subculture going for it's 1984 movie BUCKAROO BANZAI repeated times in the SFL mailing list.

-1985 marks the first time that April 1st jokes/pranks become the THING to post on April 1st.

-The doxxing of Richard Bachman being Stephen King is completed, and some SFLer's make some extremely notMad posts about it.

-Steven Brust starts posting prolifically in the SFL mailing list about many many things.
Direct quote: "If you really want mainstream quality writing in fantasy, I recommend the Gor books of John Norman." Steven Brust, SFL Archives Volume 10

(sidenote 2020: Have and will continue to re-quote 'Steven Brust recommending GOR' anywhere Steven Brust gets discussed online. The Steven Brust recommending GOR quote also lead to to my working hypothesis of:

If Heinlein inspired a never ending series of libertarian writers, well then John Norman's GOR books inspired and showed that skeevy sex sells in fantasy and scifi. 

originally posted August 11th - August 23th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3