SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 01

16% completion, 26 bookmarks

-Forest J Ackerman is the very first topic of discussion in SFL Vol 12a, with some SFLer's considering Ackerman a annoying dinosaur of SF fen-dom, others enjoying Ackerman's presence at SF conventions, and a smaller set of others lusting after Ackerman's massive collection of SF memorabilia.

-Norman Spinrad takes out a full-page in the SFWA BULLETIN to withdraw all of his future work from Nebula Award nomination, in reaction to his latest book not getting a Nebula Award nomination.

-SFLer's try to figure out all the thinly disguised SF author references & in-jokes from James Blish's BLACK EASTER. 

 -The Alderson (space) Drive in a recent Jerry Pournelle novel annoys a SFLer enough to post about it. Other SFLer's mention a future JPL employee, Dan Alderson, came up with the concept for it while attending CalTech.

-STAR TREK 4's change of tone and abandonment of standard STAR TREK-ian events/plotting frustrates some SFLers who wanted a Khan/Trelane/Balance of Terror stand-off situation in Star Trek 4 vs the save-the-whales eco-conservation that really happened. George Takei starts his hobby of low-key hating on bigger-name/better paid co-actors (this time it's Christopher Lloyd from ST3).

-CJ Cherryh's CHANUR'S HOMECOMING comes out and gets discussed for a few days, while SFLer's solidly ignore Stephen Donaldson's recent book, THE MIRROR OF HER DREAMS, to rehash THOMAS COVENANT being terrible.

-John Varley's BLUE CHAMPAGNE comes out, and most SFLers think it is a massive drop-off in quality compared to John Varley's earlier work. 

-Andy Griffith, SF actor? SFLers remember SALVAGE 1, a lesser know TV show Andy Griffith starred/worked on.

-Douglas Adams DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY is due out May 1987 with a 100k first printing run. 

-Steven Brust's TECKLA comes out, and SFLer's note the drastic tone change in it vs earlier Taltos books, then start to debate Taltos series lore. SKZB chimes in clarify a plot point about the love-interest SFLers got really hung up on about (a murder for hire offer vs actual character intent).

-First mention of Tad Williams, SF&F author in the SFL Archives.

-An SFLer claims that Roger Zelazny's initial plan for the AMBER series was to write one novel from each of the royal sibling's viewpoints, but got bored or frustrated whiteboarding out nine different POV scenarios. Another SFLer puts together a adjusted chronology of AMBER series events now that Merlin appears to be sticking around.  

-Marion Zimmer Bradley DARKOVER series discussion makes a serious return, with 2nd hand anecdotes of how controlling MZB is regarding DARKOVER Live Action RolePlay efforts.

-A Heinlein Defense Squad member says that Robert Heinlein wrote the first "generation ship" story and that everyone else has been copying Heinlein. When presented with evidence that multiple authors had written "generation ship" stories BEFORE Heinlein, the HDS person says that doesn't matter, Heinlein's version was superior and everyone writing AFTER Heinlein published his "generation ship" story used Heinlein as a source, and not those (filthy) non-Heinlein authors.

-St. Martin's Press buys TOR Books. St. Martin's Press also commits to adding two dedicated SciFi & Horror paperback lines effective Spring 1987. 

-SFLer's make a convincing case for the 1958 movie THE LOST MISSILE having a near perfect blend of stock military film footage and SciFi plot. 

-SFL perennial topic of discussion "matter transportation" has a Larry Niven KNOWN SPACE "stepping disks/transfer booths" fixation in late 1986/early 1987. It kicks off with a "why not use those stepping disks/transfer booths to travel across the galaxy?" And the complications that would ensue from the "beyond-complex 300+ digit" dial in codes needed to transfer-skip from your front door to the Lake BoilingHot Resort at Wolf 359. 

Then GODEL NUMBERING numbering(first mentioned in SFL Vol 02's version of "matter transportation chat") gets brought up as a solution to managing those "beyond-complex 300+ digit" codes. Then "what about: having to take account of rotational spin and gravity effect differences at the origin points/destination points" gets brought up, etc.

(2020 note: At the accounting for rotational spins/gravity effects point of this discussion thread, I started thinking of the 1994 movie STARGATE, and how the Stargate did all that via "quantum wormhole" magic. Then I realized the Stargate symbols on the Stargates are actually symbolic beyond-massive Godel Numbers, and everything started clicking together in Stargate SG-1 series lore for me.)  

-1987 SFLer's nitpicking/defending the 1983 movie WARGAMES leads to the first mention of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in the SFL Archives.

-Polly Freas death notice. Polly Freas was involved in SF&F from the 1940's onward, and edited a few SF&F books along with her husband, SF artist Frank Kelly Freas.

-Anime chat. Lots and lots of anime series chat. The original series vs dubs/adaptions by HARMONY GOLD and whatever Macek is. All the favorite iconic anime series are mentioned. Serious confusion results over protoculture being the dub-word used to tie 3 different anime series together for ROBOTECH.

Special note goes to whoever said: "Of greater interest are other Japanese Series which probably will never make it to the American scene. Mobile-suit Gundam, Zeta-Gundam, Heavy Metal L'Giam, Aura Battler Dunbine and the list goes on."

  (2020 note: The varied usage and definitions of "protoculture" powering everything, being a food source, etc in the ROBOTECH series has September 2020 me ready to offer this fresh take: Protoculture in the ROBOTECH series is THE STUFF. Tagline: "Are you eating it or is it eating you?")  

-The revival of the SF vs SCI-FI vs SKIFFY fandom uh fendom debate from SFL Archives Volume 08.

-James P Hogan is noted as complaining in a interview about how little research most writers do on the subject on which they are writing.  (2020 note: James P Hogan suffered from the opposite of this...he did too much research on made up scientific theories, while comparatively spending minutes at best on the plots/characters/conflicts in his stories.)

-Belated notice of BLUEJAY PRESS going out of business crops up in discussion of Diane Duane's upcoming books/the massive amount of projects Diane Duane is already committed to working on in 1987.  

-A SFLer lists the 4 methods of time-travel that existed in STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES. (2020 note: I only remembered 3 of them, good catch 1987 SFLer.) 

-First mention of George RR Martin's beloved WILD CARDS series in the SFL Archives.

-A SFLer (Steve Chapin) writes an mini-essay about the "disturbing trend in writers of SF these days of writing for the sake of a fast buck". And it gets stupider the longer the mini-essay goes on.

-CYBERNETIC SAMURAI by Victor Milan is one of those "5th generation of computers/Japanophobia" themed post-apocalypse novel I mentioned earlier.

-The optioned movie rights for the STAINLESS STEEL RAT come up again, and which actors/actresses would be perfect fits for a Stainless Steel Rat movie. 

(2020 note: What's the most smug IRL actor/actress you can think of? Good, now double and triple that IRLsmugness factor, and you've barely reached James Bolivar DiGriz on the worst day of his life. This is why any Stainless Steel Rat movie adaption will be terrible.)  

-The two infamous GOR movies, GOR and OUTLAW OF GOR, are in production/pre-production at Cannon Films.

-First mention of Kevin Siembieda and PALLADIUM BOOKS in the SFL Archives. (2020 note: Palladium's major contribution to gaming was the introduction of the MEGAdamage system,)

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

SFL Archives Vol 08 readthrough update 01

 -The SFL person that melted down ultra-hard over WARGAMES 1983 (back in SFL Digest Vol 07) first post in the SFL Digest Vol 08 continued to angrily shit-talk Wargames 1983 then switched to a classic "hahaha I was puppet-mastering you all hahaha" defense all in that first SFL Vol 08 post. Status: Still hyper-mad about Wargames 1983, and is angrily requesting anyone that doesn't have the same views about Wargames 1983 as them to "redirect this discussion to POL-SCI, please!" (usenet). 

(2020 sidenote: Broke a unwritten rule I have to not-google-search doing this SFL readthrough and looked this person up IRL. Their Wargames 1983 meltdown was just the first stages of them getting contrarian, bitter and angry about the '80s and the internet not evolving how they expected/wanted. )

-Normal not-angry discussions about WARGAMES 1983 continued the jokes and references to BURGER KING sponsoring Wargames 1983. Along with wonderment/lust at all the expensive gear MattBroderick had in-movie, and plotpoints that didn't make quite make sense (buying the plane tickets, why entering NORAD base a certain way if everything was so critical, etc). For explanation about the Burger King thing, the war computers name in the movie is WOPR which sounds a whole lot like Whopper when pronounced. Burger King, Whopper.....get it?

-Yet another another scifi author revealed themselves to defend the collective wisdom of SFWA members re: award nominations or not. I don't bookmark the author self-doxxes in SFL archive so maybe it was a previously self-doxxed author posting.

-The 1983 version of being terminally online: your sig file contains multiple USENET server paths+USENET handle, along with a CSNet email address, AND a ARPANET email address

-one of the first mentions of MUDs in the SFL. A request for people to create scenarios + storylines for a post-apoc MUD centering around DAYTON, OHIO. Look this up yourself, keywords: SMAUG Rutgers

-A 2nd request by Robert Forward for CAD artwork assistance in ROCHEWORLD.

-SFL discussion of James P Hogan's THE GENESIS MACHINE sort of makes John Ringo's writing and mary-sue main characters look subtle and restrained. Or maybe James P Hogan was a major influence in Ringo's work.
https://youtu.be/vgk-lA12FBk

-A humorous or not-humorous attempt to poison the well for a 1985 WorldCon hosting bid gets mentioned or is it just a texan tall tale? This story contains many Texas stereotypes so any AYES OF TEXAS megafans or/and Texas residents should pre-emptively calm the f**k down. 

-only mentioning a SCA recruitment ad that hypes up the allure of LARP combat because it contains the perfect synergy of "beating the cream" and GOR.

quote:

From: REDACTED.DETCADER at DETCADER
Subject: SCA
The SCA does not limit itself to any specific time period, it is
simply that most of the members are into the Middle Ages. The choice
of persona and interest is completly up to each person. If more
people who are interested in Tokagawa Japan or other periods would
join the SCA then it would become more generalized, more anacronistic
than it presently is. I am a member of a splinter group associated
with them known as the Tuchux. We are roughly based on the Tuchucks
of the Gor series, and the early German tribes of the pre-Roman Empire
times. This is not the Middle Ages. The best way to generate
interest in different periods is to join the SCA and try to generate
it yourself instead of waiting for others to do it. That is how the
Tuchux evolved and became one of the most feared forces in SCA
military campaigns. At last years War between the East and Middle
Kingdoms the Tuchux were the deciding factor in every battle and were
awarded the War Banner. There were only 60 of us too, but we cowed
hundreds and beat the cream of the fighters of both kingdoms. But
enough rambling the point was that you should join the SCA and try to
build a group suited to your tastes and maybe succeed like us. Somday
maybe I will meet a group of Tokagawa Samurai on the battle field, I
will of course slay them but it would be interesting.

originally posted between July 26th -July 31st in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 04 readthrough

1981 was a murders row of now-iconic movies. John Carpenter's THE THING just got teased for a mid 1982 release(stoked for SFL reactions), while Dino DeLaurentis DUNE got mentioned as recently entering pre-production. In addition to the movies already mentioned in SFL Vol 03 posts, CONAN THE BARBARIAN 1982 was initially slated for a December 1981 release date.

-The pre-release press announcement of BLADERUNNER came out, and Bladerunner chat has already started breaking SFL poster's brains.

-Additional RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK chat focused on how long the Nazi submarine trip took to the sub-base island and how Indy stayed in place outside the sub and WHY did the sub go into dive mode before the movie switched into map view.

(my take: Because the Nazi's just raided a ship and wanted/needed to run the f**k away undetected before any Sea-cops arrived, )

-Reated chemistry nerd debates about non-digestable reversed pair chemical compounds entering FDA testing that I am guessing will officially be known to history as "NUTRASWEET"

-Release of proposed HDTV specifications causes similar heated debate among the SFL hardware enthusiasts. In Yoda speak, "Begun the graphics wars have".

-In August 1981 someone worries about/predicts whatever the f**k the Sad Puppies attempt a few decades later with the Hugo Award

-The trickle of barely disguised ad product-reviews in SFL archives kicked off by the sneery toned MENSA recruitment ad has turned into a stream

-The first occurrence of Flame On/Flame OFF in SFL archives

-DolphinF**ker discusses immortality and the various goals they have left to accomplish before dying....interspecies sex with aquatic mammals is oddly (or not so oddly) left off their life-goal list

-(august 1981) 3 spaceprobes are currently in the works for the upcoming close swing-by of Halley's Comet 

-The runaway growth of STAR WARS fandom continues to mark it's mark in the SFL archives. Despite a murderer's row of fantasy and scifi movies being released in 1981, discussion about Star Wars lore/character lineage/bounty hounters/spoilers/naming conventions and Star Wars trivia grow and grow in the SFL archives, often requiring special SFL Digest SPOILER tags.

-Graphics fans will be interested to know that "aliasing" and "anti-aliasing" get mentioned for the 1st time in the SFL archives (that I can recall) when SFL users post their SIGGRAPH 1981 attendance reviews.

-Spoilers about the upcoming STAR TREK 2 movie where Spock dies/not dies, and the SFL talk that ensues. Gene Roddenberry the Bitter continues a decades long "notMad" pout.

-A few self proclaimed Cinematographic Historians start offering trivia challenges to see what earlier movies Lucas/Spielberg/others ripped off in certain visually stunning scenes Lucas/Spielberg/etc shot. No one cares, almost no one responds; especially after the 1st round of trivia question answers prove to be really stupid, even for 1981.

-Special effects people who worked on Star Wars 1977 + maybe also Star Wars 1980 notice that Star Wars fandom isn't subsiding and start pimping themselves/scamming SW fans at SIGGRAPH 1981 with faked Return of the Jedi "test" footage.

-In the year 1981 SFL chat has been bringing up a long long dead fantasy author. This decades dead author was supposedly more than a slight influence on JRR Tolkien. Besides that. the only reason why I mention this is because the same phrases and wordings people use to describe Gene Wolfe's writing style and stories are getting mentioned in similar ways for this long long dead fantasy genre author. For people interested, the long dead fantasty genre authors name is E.R. Eddison.

-The mailing list maintainers fessed up to lots of behind-the-scenes admin stuff about failing hardware, mis-configured scripts resulting in delayed/missing/duplicate/erroneous SFL Digests being published. Since bandwidth/computing power back in 1981 was a rounding error of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the bandwidth/computer power the year 2020 have, these were serious issues.

-Using RotLA examples, Film insurance/film insurance payouts got explained.

-Hardware failure explained why '50s/'60s/'70s juvenile entertainment chat got cut off so abruptly in the SFL Vol 03 archive. 2 special makeup issues of the SFL Digest were sent out, composed entirely of March 1981-June 1981 'juvenile entertainment' SFL submissions

-A small digression into sharing and listing out the various known Pseudonyms genre authors had used up. Much of this info will be found at https://www.isfdb.org

-An upsurge in discussions of Marion Zimmer Bradley published work, and MZB in general, which I power-skimmed over heavily.

-Every San Francisco resident/former resident of San Francisco chimed in when someone asked the SFL Digest if EMPEROR NORTON was made up.

-The SFL archives message that inspired me to re-read the SF-LOVERS Digest from the beginning, this time taking notes

quote:

    Date: September-ish 1981

    From: REDACTED at RE-DAC-TED

    Subject: SF-Lovers Query

    My 13 year old son is reading the GOR series.

    I have heard that it is not only badly written (which I expect), but also overly sexist, Sado-masochistic, and violent.

    Has anybody read it? Any comments on it?

    REDA CTED-

originally posted between July 6th -July 12th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3