SFL Archives Vol19a readthrough update 01

 SFL Archives Volume 19a 

486 SFL Digests in a 8.6 mb raw text dump.

100% completion, 209 bookmarks

Movies, television shows referenced: SEAQUEST DSV, VIPER (TV), SPLIT SECOND, GHOST IN THE MACHINE (anime), BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM, INFRAMAN aka SUPER INFRAMAN, FORBIDDEN PLANET, WAXWORK 2: LOST IN TIME, MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, FOREVER KNIGHT (TV),ALIEN NATION (TV), ROBOCOP (TV), DARKROOM (TV), M.A.N.T.I.S. (TV), TEKWAR (TV), ALF (TV), THE CRYPT (TV), KNIGHT RIDER 2010 (TV), BODY SNATCHERS (1993), HIGHLANDER (TV), ISIS (TV), X-FILES (TV), AMAZING STORIES (TV), ISLAND CITY (TV), MODEL BY DAY (TV), ARMY OF DARKNESS, DARKMAN, AI, CODE RED (TV), THUNDER IN PARADISE (TV), ADVENTURES OF HERCULES (TV), LIQUID TELEVISION (TV), EARTH 2 (TV), THE STAND (TV), BATMAN FOREVER, DOOMWATCH (TV), STAR TREK: TNG, THE PHOENIX (TV), MY LIVING DOLL (TV).

SF&F stories referenced: DRAGONDOOM, WOMEN ON THE EDGE OF TIME, SEEKERS MASK,STAR TREK MEMORIES, IN THE NET OF DREAMS, DARK MIRROR, TIME WARS, LIFE ON THE BORDER, THE VIRTUAL BOSS, ELSEWHERE, NEVERNEVER, TERMINAL COMPROMISE, QUARANTINE, RATS AND GARGOYLES, FREE CONTINUATION OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS, 300 YEARS LATER, TEKWAR, OUT OF THIS WORLD, A DIAMOND MASK, HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT, CARVE THE SKY, CHIMERA, SMALL GODS, THE SHEEP LOOK UP,ILLUSION, EUROTEMPS, INTO THE GREEN, MADNESS SEASON, BLACK SUN RISING, WHEN TRUE NIGHT FALLS, GLOBALHEAD, LITTLE BIG, ENGINE SUMMER, CANOPUS IN ARGOS, HERE COMES THE SUN, JUMPER, ASSEMBLERS OF INFINITY, A JUDGEMENT OF DRAGONS, THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE, THE LAST DANCER, THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR, MANHATTAN TRANSFER, CURSE OF THE MISTWRAITH, LIGHTWING, CRASHLANDER, FLARE, FOSSIL HUNTER, TALISMANS OF SHANNARA, GUILTY PLEASURES, KALIFORNIA, DEMON KNIGHT, HARD TO BE A GOD, ROADSIDE PICNIC, JEDI SEARCH, HOLLOW MAN, GOOD NEWS FROM OUTER SPACE, INTERFACE, CONSIDER PHLEBAS, HABITABLE PLANETS FOR MAN, THE PLANET STRAPPERS, STARWOLF, SIDESHOW, BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN, FACE IN THE SNOW, UNDERSTANDING COMICS.  

Pop culture references: Steve Urkel, Beverly Hills 90210, Dragonlance: 2nd generation, Dragon Magazine, alt.alien.visitors, Erica Ehm the MuchMusic VJ, Kurt Loder & MTV News, Are you Being Served? (TV), Lightwave 3D rendering, Global Positioning System (GPS) as a new technology due to revolutionize travel, Betrayal at Krondor (pc game), Femme Fatales magazine, Essex House the upsale eroticia fiction publisher, SAIFAI, X-COM: UFO Defense (1994 pc game), WWW internet pages being something new and cool.

1994 Death notices: Robert Shea (SF&F author). Jack Kirby (iconic comics industry artist/writer). Raymond Z. Gallun (SF&F writer). Frank Belknap Long Jr (SF&F author).

Kicking off things for 1994, the SFL Lovers Mailing list acquires a copyright notice. This will be referenced later on when the SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator explains that they have been censoring lots of messages sent into the SF-LOVERS mailing list, and have taken it upon themselves to exclude things with copyright notices like the Del Rey Internet Newsletter.

(2021 note: That truly sucked. The Del Rey Internet Newsletter was legitimately interesting, and it's exclusion makes the SFL Archives a extremely tedious read).

-Early 1990's Macintosh computers having issues with heavy usage of elipse tagging (P.C. Hodgell's Seeker's Mask)

-SEAQUEST DSV series discussion ranging from the budget, CGI effects, the mechanicized dolphin-puppet, plots, plotholes, etc. 

-A firesale offer on custom ConFrancisco 1993 SF-LOVERS t-shirt merchandise featuring artwork by Hugo-nominated artist Bob Eggleton.

-VIPER (tv-series) featuring another instance of Hollywood casting hiring non-disabled people for disabled on-camera roles

-Cordwainer Smith aka Paul Linebarger being involved in writing the Korean War armistice and Korean War defection propaganda. 

(2021 note: adding this to the list of things to lookup & fact-check)

-Iain Banks supposedlyclaiming that there is one sentence in AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND that proves it is set in the 'Culture' universe.

Plus there is supposedly one or two throwaway references to LAZY GUNS in either CP, PoG, or UoW?

-THE LAST DEADLOSS VISIONS by Christopher Priest is posted to the Internet. Deadloss Visions is a rebuttal slash deep dive into the many claims and multiple failed release dates Harlan Ellison has made about Last Dangerous Visions.

-George RR Martin sells a 3 book fantasy trilogy A SONG OF FIRE AND ICE to Bantam: A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter. First book is due out around early 1996.

-Deconstructing MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, includes most commonly used words, and episode beats.

-Joe Straczynki starts posting directly to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. JMS gives lots of Babylon 5 series feedback, and very emotional lashing out when fans predict things too early, or call things low-budget, or make direct comparisons 1:1 to STAR TREK episodes. Callbacks to JMS's earlier tv work is mentioned. By the end of June 1994 JMS is in peak 'terminally online' mod and shows little signs of chilling out.

(2021 note: JMS: on the Michael O'Hare re-casting notice comes out around mid May 1994)

-A few other people involved in producing Babylon 5 start posting to the SF-LOVERS mailing list, mostly about alien race makeup in B5/makeup artist stuff.

-Lots of eye-rolling SFLer posts about Harlan Ellison being extremely full of himself. With a bonus example of how to quickly identify good tv-script dialogues in 20 seconds or less.

-The Northridge CA 1994 earthquake via the lense of the SFL Archives is first mentioned in a SCI-FI channel tour of Harlan Ellison's house, then as a contributing cause to the various stressfull things JMS encountered while season 1 of Babylon 5 was being produced. Then finally as a item of interest in internet SF&F newsletter ANSIBLE 79.

-Throw-away reference to the US 1st Nations Navajo CODETALKER role in World War 2.

(2021 note: This is one of the more interesting things about World War 2. Security through Obscurity, Security through slang.) 

-TERMINAL COMPROMISE, the 1991 computer terrorism quasi cyberpunk novel comes up for discussion. TERMINAL COMPROMISE an objectively terrible book, full of dated racisms, author-insert good-guys, and galactic class stupidity start to finish. However Terminal Compromise DID manage to predict a global grounding Boeing 737 jet-airplanes.

-FREE CONTINUATION OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS by Nick Perumov and another follow-up 300 YEARS LATER.

-Tad Williams discussion. Memory Sorrow Thorn, along with other stories. Something about one particularly long book (1600 pages) being broken up into multiple paperback versions.

-Extended discussion of Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant and The Gap series. Similarly lots of discussion of Bujold's Miles Vorkoisgan series, with the same arguements used to defend the rape, assault and universe-bending to make the main characters always right/justified in every action they perform in each series.

-Dan O'Bannion's trend of ripping off AE Van Vogt without credit for O'Bannion's most well known movie scripts. 

-Julian May's DIAMOND MASK comes out, and SFLers notice an immediate drop in story quality, characterization, plot, etc. SFLer's note how the titular character of the novel is more of a supporting character than main character of their own book.

-DR BILL'S SPACE COMPANY, which may or may not exist outside of an early 1994 april fools joke. 

-The pornographic sex rape murder elements in the Chung Kuo books supposedly being toned down in the sequels.

-More HIGHLANDER the TV-series discussion. Various new-old immortal enemies, Duncan's love interests, swords appearing from nowhere for duels, Watchers, Hunters, what happened to disposing of decapitated immortal bodies, Richie as an immortal, Duncan's backstory, killing on holy ground, special effects during Quickening scenes, etc. 

-Discussion of the now long forgotten ISIS tv-show starring Joanna Cameron who low-key starred in late 1960's - early 1970's softcore porn, featuring a team-up with the 1970's SHAZAM! tv-series.

-More Sim/Gen story discussion. This series remains weird and peak LARP material.

-ISLAND CITY, Kevin Conroy's most well-known live-acting role...discounting Conroy's voice-acting work for BATMAN: THE ANIMATED TV SERIES.

-Honor Harrington book 3 THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR comes out, and 1994 mil-scifi fans enjoy it while noting the many many flaws and tropes David Weber is cramming into every Honor Harrington story.

-The prolific writing career of Lionel Fanthorpe, who is now mostly forgotten to modern day SF&F fans.

-Various pre-Disney owned Marvel Comics movie discussion. tldr summary: they all sucked and were extremely low budget films.

-First mention of Devito/Schwarzenegger comedy teamup film TWINS.

-Robert Anson Heinlein's deeply buried embarrassing 1930's political activity: advocating for Upton Sinclair's "End Poverty in California" platform.

-The Michael Moorcock guide to writing a 60000 word fantasy novel -break it down into four 15000 word parts each of three chapters. An incident must happen every three pages to keep the reader engrossed.

-A Spider Robinson creepy sex and sexual assault defense squad appears, with one person outing themselves as part of a long running het triad.

-Arkady & Boris Strugatsky and Stanislaw Lem story discussion and comparison. Translated versions of their works discussion vs original language, what non-SovietBloc SF&F writers each author had access to when writing certain books, etc.

-The trend of "imaginary friend" Hologram characters in Scifi tv-series recently.

-The Heinlein Defense Squad appears to rehabilitate RAH's obsession on incest/eugenics, and IWFNE. The Heinlein Defense Squad has given up claiming Heinlein was able to write more than one character type for male or female characters. All good-guy male characters in Heinlein stories are RAH self-inserts, all female characters in Heinlein stories are Virginia Heinlein redheads.

-Kim Stanley Robinson discussion. Red Mars, Blue Mars, Hawaii Green party politics, etc.

-SF&F author Paul J. McAuley having a imposter trying to claim his published work.

-Harry Turtledove on writing. Historical accuracy and consistency do not apply in his work, whatever makes the story go forward is what Turtledove will write.

-Early discussion of George Lucas on what will be happening and appearing in the Star Wars prequel movies.

-An SFLer reposts an interview-response they had with Robert Jordan on his Wheel of Time series to the SFL Archives.

-DOCTOR WHO fans slowly start to realize that Jonathan Nathan-Turner was the root cause of 98% of the problems with the Doctor Who franchise. 

-A interview with Raymond Feist on his RIFTWAR series is reposted to the SFL Archives.

-The tv-adaptation of Stephen King's THE STAND miniseries comes out, and SFLers discuss it. Casting choices, plot holes, differences between book and miniseries, etc. 

-First mention of CFC's damaging the ozone layer in the SFL Archives. Mentioned as a side prediction of John Brunner in THE SHEEP LOOK UP.

-Sharyn McCrumb's BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN & ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL massively pissing off a bunch of SFLers, who seem themselves negatively portrayed in McCrumb's "mockumentaries of SF&F conventions" novels, while other more even-keeled SFLer's admit to seeing alot of truth in what McCrumb portrayed.

(2021 note: The extremely angry & hurt SFLers are so whiney about the contents of those two McCrumb books that reading them is now something I want to do in the near future.)

-The final episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION airs and no-one really posts about.

(2021 note: Heavy discussion of STAR TREK related properties was my major concern going into this readthrough project, which never really happened.)

-Doubleday Books violating a March 1991 settlement agreement with Ron Montana over selling copies of DEATH IN THE SPIRIT HOUSE.

-A brief recap of Julie Newmar's acting career, featuring a deep dive into one of Newmar's earliest acting roles in MY LIVING DOLL.

SFL Archives Vol 14 readthrough update 01

SFL Archives Vol 14

7.5 mb raw text file

30 % completion, 45 bookmarks.

-Robert Tappan Morris's Internet Worm attack of 1988  gets mentioned as a brief sidenote in the SFL Archives.

(2020 note: This has been one of things I've been waiting to show up since Vol 02 or so of doing this SFL Archives readthrough attempt.) 

-SFLer's ask "What is the earliest historical fiction that you know of?"

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Picard vs STAR TREK: THE ORGINAL SERIES Kirk comparisons start happening. One SFLer uses the 1988 George Bush vs Michael Dukakis presidental election debates as to how they perceive Kirk & Picard.

(2020 note: This is one of the things I thought would happen ASAP in the SF-LOVERS mailing list once Star Trek: TNG aired. That it took midway through season 2 of TNG to happen is gratifying.)

-Constant re-occurring BLADERUNNER 1982 the movie discussion. The oddball replicant count in the movie, differences in the movie vs the book, Replicant memories, and "are the pictures Deckard looks at in the movie holograms?" given how small things move in them/are visible changing up the viewing angle.

-Stephen King book discussion: The Gunslinger book 2: DRAWING OF THE THREE comes out, and minor discussion of a Stephen King short story about matter teleportation (Jaunt?).

-First rumors of turning the WATCHMEN graphic novel into a movie start up, and some SFLer's think it a Watchmen adaptation might work better as tv-series.

(2020 note: Both possibilities happened, eventually, only extremely later than SFLers of 1989 expected.)

-Background details about why the movie BUCKAROO BANZAI 1984 is never getting a sequel. TLDR: 20th Century Fox f*cked themselves over multiple times, especially selling off ALL the videotape rights of Buckaroo Banzai 1984 for a pittance, then watched in impotent anger as the buyer of the videotape rights made a 2000% profit when Buckaroo Banzai went to videotape. 

-An explanation of exactly what roles & duties story/book packagers perform liasioning between literary agents, authors, and publishers; using Byron Preiss as an example.

-Three movies under production in early 1989 all using deep underwater settings/similar sounding plots: DEEPSTAR SIX, THE ABYSS and LEVIATHAN.

-J. Michael Straczynski anecdotes about behind the scenes production problems for the 1980's  revamp of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. SFLer's also note Straczynski's work as story editor for the now mostly forgotten CAPTAIN VIDEO childrens tv series.

-SFLer's start discussing "O LUCKY MAN!", a 1973 UK movie, and everything about it/in it sounds extremely bizarre. 

-Gay characters in SF (and Fantasy) discussion. Lots of interesting examples come up.

-Philip K Dick discussion, 1989 edition: PKD's paranoia about a home invasion, the ongoing changes of how PKD viewed the home invasion as his mental health declined, and one of PKD's "Dark-Haired Girls" comments on her PKD experiences in the early 1970's.

(2020 note: Not sure, but I think this the same Dark-Haired Girl that commented on her experiences with PKD back in Vol 03?/Vol 04/Vol 05? It was deeply fascinating and amazing when the DHG related PKD's plan to confuse/fuck the narcs that were constantly monitoring him.)

-A unofficial "CAN YOU OUT CYBERPROSE WILLIAM GIBSON/other cyberpunk writers?" SF-LOVERS challenge is issued, and as of mid May 1989, no SFLer has responded to the challenge.

(2020 note: Finished reading SFL Archives 1989, and no one rose to the challenge.)

-People managing the Hugo Awards nominations & vote counting process feel compelled to post about the existing procedures multiple times and insist nothing will go wrong for the 1989 Hugo Awards nomination & vote counting process, like what happened at WorldCon 1989.

-PLAGUE style stoy discussion, which seem very on-point from a 2020 perspective, with a resurgence of juvenile focused novels and television entertainment. 

-First SFL Archives mention of the 1989 movie TOTAL RECALL starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

-Julian May's PLIOSCENE COMPANION collection discussion, with special note made of how Julian May had most of the series planned out, and how the entire series setting was inspired by a kickass cosplay outfit Julian May designed/wore at a 1970's sci-fi convention.  

-THE TIDES OF GOD by Ted Reynolds discussion causing minor meltdowns by SFL people regarding religion, free will, and the Dark Ages only being European subcontinent based, not global. 

-Suzette Haden Elgin's OZARK TRILOGY being written as a direct response to all the sexist and dimissive behavior by male Sci-Fi writers towards women at convention panels.

-1989 anecdotes of how Glen Cook composed and wrote most of his stories/novels while working at General Motors, with special note taken of the timing required to perform his assembly line duties and write while on the assembly line

-A poll of what science-fiction tv series SFLer's thought were the worse of all time results in LOST IN SPACE "winning" the poll. A SFLer notes that no recent sci-fi related TV series got mentioned, and listed out a whole bunch of recentish 1980's sci-fi tv shows that had aired on US network television such as SMALL WONDER and OUT OF THIS WORLD. 

-A SFLer who requested stories abut the "introduction of anti-matter in science-fiction" comments on the responses they received from SFLers. 

(2020 note: the hurtful note when mentioning how a SFLer told them to look in the OED Supplement Vol 01 for references to anti-matter are the main reason I bothered mentioning this.)

-One SFLer noted the subgenre of "black vehicle scifi tv series of the 1980's" using AIRWOLF, STREET HAWK, and KNIGHT RIDER that all seemed to revolve around similar plots and setups.

-THE DESERT PEACH -a comic book about "The Desert Fox's pretty brother", based on Dona Barr's large fund of insider stories on the German army.

-Color coded convention badges/how various professional & amateur conventions handled convention security.

(2020 note: All these things will seem extremely quaint for people used to wifi networking & RFID badges at "modern" conventions.)

-Anecdotes of using a Larry Niven style RINGWORLD as Wargamer battle-royale setting. And how everything got derailed when one wargamer had howitzer's on their army list, and the opponent protested to the GM about needing special rules to adjust for the "coriolis forces experienced on a  Ringworld". Years later, allegedly, these two wargamers are still working out a "general set of equations for computing the trajectory of an object launched from the surface of a Ringworld."

-A college aged Jeff Vogel, who would go on to create the GENEFORGE & AVERNUM & EXILE & AVADON series of games posts about the TSR Dragonlance settings and the Dragonlance novels written.

-RED DWARF tv series part two: which covers most of the events/episodes of Red Dwarf series 1.

-Ed Greenwood at GENCON 1988 explains to a SFLer why his Forgotten Realms novel SPELLFIRE was so disjointed. Apparently, Greenwood wanted to make Spellfire mostly about his author-insert Elminster and Elminster's family in a Nine Princes of Amber way, but the TSR book editors said no.

(2020 note: It would take 6 more years for Ed Greenwood to get the first of his many "The Mary Sue adventures of Elminster" published, during the final stages of TSR's "publish everything, we need the quarterly product release statements to look amazing". 1 year later, TSR went bankrupt and got bought by Wizards of the Coast.)

-John Cramer uses the Internet to post a "open letter reply" to comments made about his "hard SF novel TWISTOR".

(2020 note: Authors posting open letter comments were not a common thing on the Internet at this point in 1989, so I felt this was of special archival interest.)

SFL Archives Vol 12b readthrough update 02

54% completion, 35 bookmarks. 

-Issue 12 of the WATCHMEN comic written by Alan Moore comes out and so far the SFL Archives reaction to it has been to start mentioning other SciFi stories that did the faked alien invasion scheme earlier than the Watchmen comic.

-Robert Heinlein chat pt 325211321 brings up oddball Heinlein fans that really love NotB, Heinlein's JOB possibly being a homage to the work of James Branch Cabell, Speedtalk, and other synthetic languages such as Loglan. Some of  the SFLer's in the Heinlein discussion thread wanted to create their own unique language for the Internet.

(2020 note:  Nobody ended up predicting LEET SPEAK which is everything the 1987 SFLer's participating in this discussion thread wanted and more.) 

-DARKSWORD, the first non-DRAGONLANCE related series by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman comes out in 1987.

-SFLer's still fixated on the earliest published Science Fiction story continue debating things, with the trips to the moon and interstellar warfare in Lucian of Samosata's really old story A TRUE STORY finally coming up.

(2020 note: By really old, I mean 1700+ years old. Lucian of Samosata lived and died in the 2nd century AD.

-A new Orson Scott Card book, SEVENTH SON, comes out and SFLer's notice that OSC tends to follow the same plot beats in each of stories (gifted child, gifted child trained hard by amoral teachers, gifted child deals with world ending/society ending menace no-one else could deal with, etc.) Additionally, SFLer's note the Mormon influence is getting stronger and stronger in everything new OSC writes.

-An 1987 SFLer makes the comment "While I am a wargamer (for going on 20 yrs), even I find it unbelievable that wargaming would become a worldwide sport of such proportions as described, much less become a replacement for courts".

(2020 note: Valve and their 9 years plus DOTA tournament would have exploded that quoted SFLer's brain.)

 -SIGN OF CHAOS, the 8th Roger Zelazny AMBER book comes out early. SFL reaction is mixed, more than a few SFLer's are catching onto the Arthurian mythos elements in the new AMBER books.

-Larry Niven KNOWN SPACE chat pt 235747: this time it's about Louis Wu, and how Niven's A WORLD OUT OF TIME ties in with/does not tie in with the KNOWN SPACE series and the Integral Trees series.

-The first 7th Doctor DOCTOR WHO episodes starring Sylvester McCoy come out, and SFLer's note how the Doctor Who episodes are being aired the in same timeslot as mega-popular long running British tv series CORONATION STREET. 

(2020 note: The legacy of John Nathan-Turner being an exceptionally bad people-person and divisive Doctor Who showrunner accelerates.)

-Rumors of a bunch of Californians and Oregon people trying to buy up land and get a private road with no speed limits/no-law enforcement stretching from Northern California to mid-Oregon.

(2020 note: While amazing sounding. this is probably a urban myth.)

-Eric S. Raymond, a relatively well known computer field personality in the 1990's, starts posting in the SF-LOVERS mailing list. 

(2020 note: Eric S. Raymond wrote an essay called THE CATHEDRAL AND THE BAZAAR which anyone who has dabbled in software development in the past 20 years has probably heard of.)

-That rumored in-the-works California-Oregon private road kicks off discussion of Harlan Ellison writing a similar themed story named ALONG A SCENIC ROUTE. 

(2020 note: The details of this short story heavily reminded of Steve Jackson Games CAR WARS, and the videogame series CARMAGEDDON.)

-A Writers guide to STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION leaks out, as does news of Gene Roddenberry being moved to a purely advisory role Star Trek: TNG, and Leonard Nimoy leaves himself open to appearing on any future STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episodes. Walter Koenig writing 2 episodes/guest-starring in one episode of the forgotten 1970's SciFi series THE STARLOST comes up.

-Julian May starts her "near-modern day" prequel series to her totally batshit-insane PLIOCENE EXILE series with INTERVENTION coming out in 1987.

-A few SFLer's feel brave enough to start posting that Piers Anthony isn't that great and keeps slightly rewriting the same book over and over (same as Jack Chalker) getting more pervy all the time (same as Jack Chalker), while Steven Brust's work is getting praised more and more.

-Frank Herbert CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE discussion. with the weirdness of the last 2 books being noted, and some wondering at the what the 7th book DUNE Frank Herbert never started would have been about.

-An SFLer makes a case for Roger Zelazny borrowing from Michael Moorcock ELRIC stories when originally creating Amber and Prince Corwin. Other SFlers comment on this theory adding in other Michael Moorcock stories and other authors such as Poul Anderson. 

-HERBIG-HARO (Harry Turtledove), the work of James Branch Cabell, WIZARD OF THE PIGEONS, the novella EIFELHEIM (Michael Flynn), STAR BRIDGE (Jack Williamson), IT (Stephen King).

-1987 Canada being a powerhouse of relatively cheap television production vs the USA, if only more people, companies, Hollywood, etc would notice it. 

(2020 note: Oh people did catch on fast. Around the 1990's lots of lower-budget tv series started to relocate to Canada, only it was Vancouver Canada everyone went to , and not Toronto Canada like the SFLer who posted this preferred.)

-Alfred Bester, author of SciFi classics like THE STARS MY DESTINATION and THE DEMOLISHED MAN, death notice. 

-The pilot episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION comes out. SFLer's mostly enjoy it while commenting on the weakness of the plot and the giant jellyfish and Trio seeming useless, and the tired romance plot from STAR TREK 1 being recycled for Troi & Riker. The Leonard McCoy cameo was nicely received, with SFLer's wondering how many other main ST:TOS cast will be appearing on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However the saucer separation sequence of the Enterprise NCC-1701-D in the pilot episode is something new and unexpected and SFLer's start wondering how often that will happen in future ST:TNG episodes along with the Warp Speed scale changes. The previews of the upcoming 2nd ST:TNG episode have SFLer's noting the extreme similarities to the Star Trek: TOS episode the NAKED TIME and wondering how many TNG episodes will be recycled TOS /ST movie content.

-SFLer's live-blog their WorldCon 1987 convention with a least of at least 24+ SF-LOVERS attending the SF-LOVERS @ party. Also SFler shout-outs happen for the Netherlands who will be hosting WorldCon 1990.

SFL Archives Vol 02 readthrough update 02

 -STAR WARS pt 3: lots of the cut scenes and concept drawings from New Hope + Empire Strikes Back got recycled for ROGUE ONE....like Vaders iron castle in a sea of lava, and the slow ground effect destruction of the death star in Rogue One also got predicted in SFL chat, either as cut effects or as physics discussion about blowing a planet apart.

-came across a SFL poster that I have mentally badged "DolphinF**ker". This person whipped out 3 detailed posts about dolphins and dolphin research lore by John Lily over the course of 3 days. Keep in mind this is circa 1980, and no gopher search protocol exists, no html exists, no google...this person had to have had everything on hand....hence "DolphinF**ker"

-first case of "Asimov non-consent" at a convention/award ceremony mentioned in SFL. Asimov kissed two ladies mouth-on-mouth on the stage, then defused everything by kissing Silverberg mouth-on-mouth the same exact way

-a Heinlein Defense Squad has emerged, composed of the people who heavily espoused Robert Heinlein Libertarianism. the most strident member of the squad is unshockingly the SuperMechaGodzilla poster

-the first book of Julian May's absolutely insane SAGA OF THE PLIOCENE EXILE gets teased for a mid 1981 release (I look forward to reading the SFL reviews of it).

-the SFL SuperMechaGodzilla poster cemented their shitbag-troll status by mentioning how they have centaur on centaur artwork porn hanging in their work office just to troll for reactions.

-the Heinlein defense squad are also the SFLers whom constantly hypothesize that Leia is going to get knocked up (as all women do in Heinlein stories) and the kid Leia will have is the "Other hope" mentioned by Yoda & Ghost ObiWan in Empire Strikes back.

-DolphinF**ker appeared a few more times, dropping more dolphin research lore & tidbits like their first name and that they have a roommate. (Pity that roommate).

-Carl Sagan's tv series COSMOS came out and most of the SFL talk about it has been "INANE GRIN", "great teeth", "amazing toothpaste commercial", etc.

-f**king in mil-scifi stories, homosexual animal behavior observed in captivity and the wild (both topics are related so they got combined here)

-a resurgence of MZB's DARKOVER series chat (ugh)

-SFL slams about PJF ripping off RZ then RZ ripping off PJF then thread agreement that both PJF + RZ are pastiche rip-offs

-Dr Robert Forward pimped the appearance of his daughter-in-law in a upcoming (now 39.5 yrs past) episode of THREE'S COMPANY. Also in that same post Dr Forward doxxed his son who it turns out also posts in the SFL mailing list

-Dr Forward's doxxed son proposed a ID badge for SFL members to wear at future scifi/fantasy conventions for physical SFL meet and greet purposes, and the SFL people that go to conventions started proposing logo ideas. 

-Dr Robert Forward discloses his contract with BALLANTINE BOOKS for DRAGON'S EGG royalties. Reposting it in full, because I feel it might of archival interest to any current or future authors curious to see what a first time author circa 1980 book contract financial numbers/payout terms would be.

-------------------------------------------

Date: 21 DEC 1980 1001-PST

From: FORWARD at USC-ECL

Subject: Financial arrangements of writing

I don't know about the more complicated financial

arrangements of well-known authors, but I can say something about

a typical first-author contract with a good publishing house.

My contract with Ballantine for DRAGON'S EGG pays the

following royalties:

10% of the retail price for hardcover copies

8% of the retail price for the first 150,000 paperbacks

10% of the retail price for paperbacks above 150,000

It gets more complicated as we get into trade editions, book

clubs, foreign publications, and other rights that Ballantine's

staff sells to others. Typically Ballantine keeps 50% of book

club license fees (the SF Book Club is paying a royalty of 30

cents or about 5% of their price. I get half of that.), and

keeps 25% of foreign rights, which vary widely with country and

difficulty of translation. There will be English, German, and

Japanese versions of DE.

In order to keep beans on the table of the author while he

is finishing off the manuscript and waiting the typical year

between delivery of MS and publication of book, and an additional

year before the sales are counted and the royalty calculated, the

publisher makes an estimate of the minimum amount of royalties

that can be expected and gives the author a portion of that as an

advance payment against the royalties. If the book does well,

then the advance is paid off in the first year and from then on

the author gets royalty checks. If the book does poorly, it may

never sell enough copies to pay off the advance.

As an author becomes better known and gets better agents,

then the agents keep the foreign and other rights and sell them

separately, the percentages rise, the advances become larger, and

other clauses dictating print run sizes and advertising budgets

start to appear.

In answer to Steve Zeve's specific question, since the

payment is based on a percentage of the retail selling price, the

payments to the authors have been in general keeping up with the

increases in book costs.

Bob Forward

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-SFL Vol 02 ended maybe 30 messages after that Robert Forward post royalty payment disclosure. 

originally posted between June 26th-June 29th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3