SFL Archives Volume 25 readthrough

 SFL Archives Volume 25

1.9 mb raw text file

100% completion, 258 bookmarks

Movies, television shows referenced: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (tv-series), XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS (tv-series), THE X-FILES (tv-series), ANGEL (tv-series), STAR TREK VOYAGER (tv-series), GALAXY QUEST, FARSCAPE (tv-series), THE GREEN MILE, FIRST WAVE (tv-series), FUTURAMA, CHARMED (tv-series), FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, OUTER LIMITS (tv-series), SUPERNOVA, PITCH BLACK, WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?, CLEOPATRA 2525 (tv-series), THE 10TH KINGDOM (tv-series), GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB (tv-series), MISSION TO MARS, HELL SWARM, THE OTHERS (tv-series), HOLLOW MAN, SPACE COWBOYS, ANDROMEDA (tv-series), DARK ANGEL (tv-series), LEXX (tv-series), FREAKYLINKS (tv-series), THE INVISIBLE MAN (tv-series), RED PLANET, THE SIXTH DAY, DUNE (tv-series).

SF&F stories referenced: FINITY, INFINITYS SHORE, A CIVIL CAMPAIGN, THE TRIGGER, JUNIPER GENTIAN AND ROSEMARY, NEUROMANCER, CAVEAT: VIOLENT STARS, KINGS DAGGERS, RHAPSODY, SHIP OF DESTINY, A READ HEAT OF MEMORIES, INDIGO, A CLASH OF KINGS, THE GOLDEN GLOBE, LEGENDS, LAST AND FIRST MEN, RED MARS, BLUE MARS, WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE, THE FALSE HOUSE, OTHERLAND, MOVING MARS, THE WINTER QUEEN, GRIDLOCK, THE TOYOTOMI BLADES, THE MULTIPLEX MAN, SHIVA IN STEEL, DESOLATION ROAD, THE BLUE SWORD, WHIRLWIND, ARISTOI, PRAYERS ON THE WIND, FRANKENSTEINS AND FOREIGN DEVILS, STRANGE TRAVELERS, FORGOTTEN LIFE, THE ESSENTIAL HAL CLEMENT VOLUME 2, EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN, PLAYER OF GAMES, AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND, LORD OF THE FIRE LANDS, THE ZERO HOUR, 1632, DEATHSTALKER, BAD MEMORY, FOREVER FREE, KNIGHT OF THE DEMON QUEEN, DRAGONSBANE, STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER, SAILING TO SARANTIUM, RAGNAROCK, THE STAR FRACTION, INFINITY BEACH, STARSWARM, CARPE JUGULUM, THE EXTREMES, LAST OF THE RENSHAI, THE SPARROW, ASHES OF VICTORY, THE MOREAU FACTOR, THE BLACK COMPANY, LORD OF EMPERORS, LIONS OF AL-RASSAN, SCENT OF MAGIC, THE NEW APOCRYPHA, VACUUM FLOWERS, THE SHATTERED SPHERE, GENESIS, TIME, SHARDS OF HONOR, ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES, NOCTURNE FOR A DANGEROUS MAN, VENGEANCE IN DEATH, THE BURNING CITY, VAMPIRE$, GODS DICE, FAMILY TREE, SIX MOON DANCE, MEMORY SORROW AND THORN, GREEN RIDER, ISLE OF THE DEAD, THE CYBERIAD, GREENHOUSE SUMMER, STATIONS OF THE TIDE, FREE LIVE FREE, CASTLEVIEW, PEACE, SPIRIT RING, MODERN CLASSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION, OPERATION LUNA, VENUS, GARDENS OF THE MOON, ASH: A SECRET HISTORY, THE CASSINI DIVISION, A SIGNAL SHATTERED, CRYPTONOMICON, ANGEL STATION, HARDWIRED, THE BRIDGE, RIVERWORLD, I OWE FOR THE FLESH, BONE WARS, A CASE OF CONSCIENCE, SHIP OF DESTINY, A STORM OF SWORDS, LOOK TO WINDWARD, DARWINS RADIO, BLOOD MUSIC, NULL-O, REPLAY, KISS OF SHADOWS, THE NAKED GOD, THE ROAD TO MARS, THE TELLING, REQUIEM, THE COLLAPSIUM, PARADOX, BLACK EVENING, DECLARE, A HYMN BEFORE BATTLE, PAVANE, CALLAHANS KEY, THE PROMETHEUS CRISIS, CHIMERA, INTERESTING TIMES, THIEF OF TIME, A STITCH IN TIME, COSMONAUT KEEP, THE PWER, SNOW CRASH, RULES OF CONFLICT, FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, INVERSIONS, DEFENDER, THE HERO OF DOWNWAYS, LODESTAR, THE LAST HOTE TIME, ENGINES OF GOD, ABANDON IN PLACE, WHEN THE KING COMES HOME, LORD OF LIGHT, SOMETIME AFTER THE EQUINOX, TRANSFORMATION, AN OBLIQUE APPROACH, THE REDEMPTION OF ALTHALUS, PROPHECT, CERES STORM, WINTERS HEART, THE PLANT, THE LOST STEERSMAN, ANNO DRACULA, THE SEVENTH TOWER, THE GOLD COAST, ICE STATION, THE COMPLEAT MCANDREW, HELLFLOWER, DOWN THERE IN DARKNESS, SENTRY PEAK, A TERRIBLE BEAUTY, THE FOX LADY, SUCH A PRETTY FACE, MURDER IN THE SOLID STATE, MARROW, FRAMESHIFT, ZEITGEIST, BROKEN TIME, RIVER OF BLUE FIRE, DOOMSDAY BOOK, TITAN, WAR FOR THE OAKS, SHADOW OF A BROKEN MAN, THE KINGS PEACE, THERE ARE DOORS.

Pop culture references: Tekumel RPG system, "FANS ARE SLANS", 1990'S comics going grim-dark and violent, the Larry Saunders tv-show, Moona Lisa the 1960's horror tv-show hostess, Perry Rhodan the German SF serial having around 2046 episodes circa November 2000, K-Mart "blue light specials", having a Usenet accent(?),

Technology callbacks: Y2k bug on the SF-LOVERS mailing list software, WebTV, intelligent robots being Bill Joy's worst nightmare(?), Redhat Linux, PowerPoint presentations, 

Death notices: John Sladek, SFF author. Curt Siodmak, SFF author & Hollywood screenwriter. Keith Roberts, artist & SF author. L. Sprague de Camp, SFF author-editor. Catherine de Camp, wife of L. Sprague de Camp.

SFL requests/discussion topics:

>Re: Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures question

>Re: M.A.R. Barker

>Re: William Gibson Neuromancer

>Re: Opinions on the Peter Hamilton books

>Re: Opinions on Red Mars/Kim Stanley Robinson

>Re: Walter Jon Williams

>Re: Brian Aldiss primer

>Re: Iain Banks PoG & AADB background

>Re: What is it about the Black Company

>Re: The sad decline of Larry Niven

>Re: Sailor Moon a few thoughts and questions

>Re: Cryptonomicon - Why is it SF?

>Re: Philip K Dick

>Re: Opinions, please, on Philip Pullman

>Re: Terry Pratchett Discworld

>Re: Lensman series

>Re: David Brin's Uplift universe

>Re: Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time

>Re: Anno Dracula and sequels

-The amusing thing where Olaf Stapledon had no idea science-fiction existed as a literary genre, or that he was considered a scifi author.

-Some SFLer's finally free brave enough online to say they don't enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson's scifi writing, and that his writing/characters/character motivations in his Mars trilogy are not good.

-SFLer's start posting reviews of GALAXY QUEST, and most feel favorably towards the movie and the actors, while others feel Star Trek fandom is being mocked. Sam Rockwell stealing every  movie scene he's in and Sigourney Weaver's Wonderbra cleavage is brought up in almost every review of GALAXY QUEST.

-Hardware failure events on the sf-lovers server, and repeated instances of mailer daemon failure and internet gateway issues happen throughout SFL Archives Volume 25.

-Almost every SFLer submits a review of the movie PITCH BLACK in varying shades (pun intended) of critique. Vin Diesel being a up and coming actor to watch out for in the future comes up in almost every review of PITCH BLACK.

-The SFLer doing the "read and review all Hugo Award winning novels" project breaks down and can't finish DOWNBELOW STATION, and entirely gives up the readthrough project after finishing FOUNDATIONS EDGE.

-Half-life of SFF reader awareness circa 2000 seems to be about six months.

-SFLer's are growing increasingly tired of encountering Yet More of (Larry) Niven Writing About Sex.

-SFLer's really exhaustively comment on the movies MISSION TO MARS and RED PLANET.

-Now that Marion Zimmer Bradley is dead, SFLer's feel safe enough to start discussing the various ghostwriters contracted out by MZB. 

-Steven Erikson's GARDENS OF THE MOON comes out, and it mentioned how huge buzz on the Internet about pre-releases versions of GOTM lead to Erikson signing a nine-book, $1.2 million book contract with Random House.

-SFLer's react extremely poorly to the premiere and the first season of Gene Roddenberry's ANDROMEDA. One of the most memorable phrases describing a supporting character is "Twiki with tits".

-The backstory behind Philip Jose Farmer writing RIVERWORLD, and how the Riverworld character "Lem Sharkko" is PJF's revenge against scumbag SFF publisher Mel Korshak.

-A Locus magazine interview with Laurrell Hamilton has the highlights of Laurrell wishing she had made her setting slightly less "real world" and that when she wrote the first Anita Blake book she had no intention of ever having any sex scenes in any of the novels.

-SFLer's are finally fed up with Spider Robinson's endless least-effort-expended and smarmy Callahan's short story collections.

-L. Sprague de Camp dies and SFLer's have universal praise for him. SFLer's relate fond memories of encountering L. Sprague de Camp at SFF conventions, on airline flights, at tours, at SFF author house parties,etc.

-Whatever the hell a "Usenet accent"(?) is during public speaking at the NovaCon 2000 convention.  

-Installing a bunch of air filters in the gaming room at OryCon 2000.

-A retrospective on Russian SF writer Izaak I. Azimov.

(2021 note: I have no idea if Izaak Azimov is real or just a alternate-lifepath scenario that Isaac Asimov "could have lived" if his parents never emigrated from Russia.)

-Stephen King ends his attempt at writing serialized fiction with his serialized $1 per chapter novel THE PLANT. 

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 04

 SFL Archives Vol 13

5.9 mb raw text file

100% completion, 198 bookmarks

-A Pacific Bell newsletter reviews William Gibson's NEUROMANCER. The review is ok, however the constant insertions & defensive rebuttal comments by the SFLer reposting the PacBell newsletter review make it a hard read.

-An outright pitch for the San Diego Comic Convention by a SFL convention organizer/convention merchant, which as of 1988 was a strictly non-profit event.

-An SFLer half remembering a Cordwainer Smith aka Paul Linebargers pen-name, and roughly half of the SFL posters chime in to give corrections/clarification/story recommendations on Cordwainer Smith.

(2020 note: Linebarger's work on a Pysops World War 2 manual comes up briefly)

-Fall 1988 twist on matter transportation chat mostly revolves on what happens to the original body, and souls, soul transference in transported entities.

-Lots of discussion about Roger Zelazny's AMBER series, especially the Pattern & the Logrus ability powers.

-1988 being the year of Roddy Piper movies, with HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN and THEY LIVE. Indepth discussion of PHANTASM 2, and behind the scenes leaks on the sets of BATMAN 1989 & STAR TREK 5.

-Science-fiction stories that focused on THE BEATLES the UK Band.

-Lots of buildup for WorldCon 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana followed up by mostly hushed up talk about how poorly managed everything at WorldCon 1988 was except the Hugo Award.

-Trinary encoding being faster than binary encoding on custom built computer systems....which leaves out the added effort of rewriting code in trinary, then having to support binary & trinary programming, etc etc. 

-A new twist on ALIEN 1979 & ALIENS 1986 discussion: Are the various Alien lifeforms/lifestages sentient or intelligent because they do/do not engage in tool usage? A person who keeps referring to the Space Jockey thing it as a (alien) "mother" leads to inevitable thread confusion due to the Nostromo's AI in Alien 1979 being called "MOTHER" too.

-A SFLer hypothesizes how the Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series would go about creating planets. Weird things like using only comets for planetary construction, then FTL & notFTL used for moving around comet chunks, and other "uhhh what" stuff. 

-Two instances of HG Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS in 1988. A reboot/decades later mini-series adaptation of WotW, plus a 50 yr aniversary rebroadcasting of the WotW radio drama, with 1988 vocal talent and improved audio special effects.

-The surprisingly deep back catalogue of SCHOLASTIC PRESS.

-The many many issues with Larry Niven's SMOKE RING setting, mostly focused on how that atmosphere stays in place, especially the vast quantity of O2.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Season 2: Beverly Crusher is out, and fans start a letter writing campaign to bring her back.

-Ed Greenwood, creator of TSR's THE FORGOTTEN REALMS setting gets mentioned for the impossibility of the main character in Greenwood's FR novel SPELLFIRE.

(2020 note: It's never a good sign when the creator of the setting is compelled to create a brand new PnP character class to explain all the bullshit their lead character got away with, which is exactly what Greenwood did for his Spellfire novel.)

-SFLer's bring up the C.S. Lewis story most C.S .Lewis fans wish never existed: THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH.

-Orson Scott Card starts reverting back to Mormon fundamentalism after coming under repeated Latter Day Saints leadership pressure for his SECULAR HUMANIST REVIVALS a few years ago. 

-SFLer Larry Klaes goes through Bjo Trimble's 1969 CONCORDANCE & points out most of the errors in it, like Kirk having two brothers?; which takes up 2.5 dedicated SFL Digests. Bjo Trimble responds positively. Near the end of december 1988, Larry Klaes posts an update with corrections to his original fact-checking review of CONCORDANCE.

-One of the best descriptions of why the YA genre exists, and why it has near universal appeal for readers of all ages.

-Utterly terrible fan behavior at conventions & personal fen-dom gathering f the past 4 years (1984-1988) or recent personal fen-dom gathering, with FANS ARE SLANS being used as a negative meme for bad fen-dom behavior.

-Time machines that only work from the time they were turned on leads to one SFLer throwing out an idea of daisy chaining time machines serially until you find a really really ancient Alien built time machine, then short-cut the entire process.

-Allegations of Hugo Award vote count tampering at WorldCon 1988 happens, with muted silence from people who normally respond immediately to all things Hugo Award related. 

-SFLer's start to map the characters, and houses and organizations of Frank Herbert's DUNE series to real life analogues and it is not pretty. 

(2020 note: Fascism allegations, Nazi allegations, race sciencing, this entire discussion thread is super skippable for a 2020 reader.)

-Eleven posts about Robert Anton Wilson discussion closes out 1988. 

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 01

SFL Archives Vol 13

5.9 mb raw text file

15% completion, 25 bookmarks

-1988 technology level: MS-DOS 2.21, COMPUSERVE, dual floppy disks, monochrome monitors, Leading Edge Word Processor software. The SF-LOVERS mailing list has migrated to new hardware and now there is dedicated @EDU email addresses for SF-LOVERS mailing list submissions & SF-LOVERS administrative questions.

-SFL 1988 Pop-culture mentions: TRANSFORMERS, MY LITTLE PONY, and SMURFS cartoon series. Disney children's movie THE POINT. COLES regional bookstores. First mention of author Jo Clayton.

-1988 starts off with heavy Stephen R Donaldson and his THOMAS COVENANT series discussion, with both sides talking past each other loudly. One side is extremely angry about people dissing Donaldson's writing style/hating on the Thomas Covenant series, and the other side keeps explaining exactly why they diss Donaldson's writing style and why they hate Thomas Covenant the character/the book series.

-Poul Anderson explaining how he came up with his YS stories, Larry Niven clarifying the background of the main character in his RINGWORLD series (Louis Wu is not related to Beowulf Shaeffer or Carlos Wu).

-January 13 1988: Brian Herbert starts the rumor that he will be writing the 7th DUNE novel, and that he has more notes that his father, Frank Herbert, wrote regarding the 7th DUNE novel.

-First mention of Jack Vance's CADWAL CHRONICLES stories in the SFL Archives.

(2020 note: Almost all of the standard Jack Vance tropes apply to the Cadwal Chronicles stories. The big twist for the Cadwal stories is that the "good guys" are thinly disguised white South Afrikaners enforcing apartheid rule over the palette swapped black people that do everything in South Africa on the planet Cadwal.)

-Private investigators or just really creepy people glom onto the "Using Social Media to doxx people" concept, and start making a few of those requests to the SF-LOVERS mailing list.

-An anecdote of Marion Zimmer Bradley redacting a goofly dated "human slide-rule"/"Galactic alien slide rule" string of dialogue comparison in reprints of her earlier story THE BRASS DRAGON. 

-Richard Lupoff aka Dick Lupoff is interviewed/gives feedback to comments made about him to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. Lupoff's interview takes up an entire SFL Digest, and covers upcoming projects/stories due to be published, the terribleness of dealing with Philip Jose Farmer properties, what kind of computer Lupoff uses, Lupoff's 1st job in computing, and how Lupoff tries to highlight hypocrisy in his stories with a weird side-comment about what THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE FLIES is really about (something about future airlines switching to 100% naked stewardess-prostitutes in the near future.)  

-Suzette Hayden Elgin's OZARK stories, PORTAL (Rob Swigart), PELBAR CYCLE (Paul O. Williams), FOLK OF THE AIR (Peter Beagle), COUNTERFEIT WORLD (Daniel F. Galouyle), Craig Shaw Gardner EBENEZUM & WUNTVOR trilogies, LIEGE KILLER (Christopher Hinz), TOMMYKNOCKERS (Stephen King), ONE HUMAN MINUTE & A PERFECT VACUUM (Stanislaw Lem), REALITY MATRIX (John Dalmas).

-A standard seeming recommendation for Mercedes Lackey's existing stories and her upcoming stories get weird when the SFLer making the recommendation keeps referring to Lackey as 'Misty', which knowing nothing about Mercedes Lackey implies heavy previous contact with Lackey.

-Oddball SF&F story request: A SFLer wants recommendations for any F&SF story which occurs in the Southern temperate zone of an alien planet. AKA "when the people go south, it gets colder rather than warmer". 

-The time that Arthur C Clarke & Isaac Asimov formed a self-appreciation society of two back in the 1950's with declaring each other and themselves the 1st & 2nd best writers in the fields of Science Fiction writing and Science Fact writing.

-6 years after it came out, the movie BLADERUNNER 1982 is now considered prescient and worthy of discussion in the SFL Archives. SFLer's are confused by the plot, the differences in the Philip K Dick story vs the movie, golden eye glows due to replicant-status? or just byproducts of the lighting effects used to film Bladerunner 1982?, etc.

-The (long anticipated by me) FLYING CAR debate finally kicks off in the SFL Archives.

(2020 note: One of the truly surprising things in the SFL Archives readthrough is that it took over 9 years to finally get around to discussing flying cars, which are a common element in SciFi stories of the 1930's - 1970's.) 

-SFL Mark Leeper creates a ASCII flowchart of Zombie movies trying to explain the George Romero & John Russo Zombie movies.

-Oddball 1988 SFLer movie & book request: Any SciFi movies/books made within the past 25 years or so that were made in Spanish. That is no Spanish subtitles, or Spanish language translations of existing books.

-Press release announcement for the upcoming GAYLAXICON 1988. GAYLAXICON 1988 is "a relaxacon/minicon for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Science Fiction Fans and their Friends." No dealers room, or art shows; limited attendance/hotel registration required for attendance.

-A unknown title/author SciFi story where a spaceship going at 99.9999% the speed of light passes through the Solar System, and the relativistic mass effect of that spaceship's speed somehow causes the Earth to suddenly move 10 feet North, and all the effect it has on humans/human environments globally.

 (2020 note: This story sounds amazingly bad.)

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 11 readthrough update 11

 100% completion, 180 ruthlessly curated bookmarks.

-The SIME/GEN stuff I was wondering about way back in SFL Vol 11 update 02 gets clarified. Sime/Gen is post-apocalypse style S&M co-dependency. Fans of Dungeons and Dragons fans, think of mind-flayers and their "protected client" races.

-SFLer's start compiling list of stories with sentient computers in them, lists of post-Apocalypse stories, and lists of exactly what items SFLer's would bring to the past if subjected to time-travel with moderate advanced warning.

(2020 note: This is where fear of Japan's sudden rise as a unstoppable economic superpower in the 1980's starts making it way into SF stories, with Japan's upcoming "5th generation" of computer systems that would change everything (computer-related) ending up as the boogie-man of more than a few 1980's post-apocalypse novels. 1980's Japan's rise to economic superpower status being built on skyscrapers full of deferred debt plus the "5th generation" of computer systems being 110% vaporware weren't understood until the Japanese economic Bubble burst in the mid 1990's.) 

-Society for Creative Anachronism SFLers chime in on the "weapons policies at conventions" discussion thread, giving examples of how the SCA deals with them in "normal" SCA situations, and anecdotes of real-life PVP combat arena weapons usage.

-One of the sentient computer stories consistently getting mentioned is D.F. Jones 1960's COLOSSUS novels, which did ground-work on the "computer AI takes over the world, thinks Humans massively suck" trope that James Cameron's TERMINATOR movies would make famous.

-Jean Auel's CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR gets mentioned as being her first novel and having mind-breaking huge sales numbers. Which is why the paperback version of Auel's MAMMOTH HUNTERS will have a 2,000,000 copy first printing. The only modern equivalent I can think of regarding those numbers is JK Rowling and the HARRY POTTER series.

-Larry Niven's KNOWN SPACE/RINGWORLD chat derails intense AMBER series slash Roger Zelazny trivia chat. The Winter 1986 version of Niven chat is about the technology of the Known Space/Ringworld settings and some anecdotes of Niven being bad at math in the Ringworld books.

-HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY discussion kicks off with wondering about Zaphod B.'s extra body parts/anecdotes of Douglas Adams having a hard time being identified as THAT Douglas Adams IRL.

-STAR WARS fans start trying to figure out what eras the upcoming prequel & sequel trilogies will focus on.

-Death notices for Ian Marter (DOCTOR WHO series actor) and Roger C. Carmel (original actor of STAR TREK character Harry Mudd). 

-Iain Banks WALKING ON GLASS gets recommended, which marks the first appearance (I think) of Iain (M) Banks in the SF-LOVERS mailing list. 

-1986 SciFi personality David Gerrold talks about what he knows about/what will happen with the upcoming STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION tv-series at the 1986 LosCon.

-Two books that share a theme of first contact with alien intelligence manage to come out within months of each other. The books are CONTACT by Carl Sagan and THE HERCULES TEXT by Jack McDevitt. Diane Duane's SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD has been out in hardcover for a while.

-Colin Baker retires as the 6th DOCTOR WHO actor in December 1986.

-The 1980's version of TWILIGHT ZONE series is cancelled by CBS in December 1986, and the BBC's TV adaptation of the TRIPODS by John Christopher also gets cancelled.

-STAR TREK 4 comes out and SFL reaction is mostly positive but confused by the small amounts of normal Star Trek content in it. So SFLer's focus on what Starfleet spaceships got murked by the Alien probe, which Starfleet spaceship was deploying a (Solar) Sail, why that SF Golden Gate park trash-can didn't blow away when the cloaked Bounty landed, why ionization made the Klingon transporters on the Bounty fail, why/how the 20th century engineer knew 6 inch thick plasteel slabs were needed to hold back that specific amount of water, time-loops, and which of the many Constitution class Starfleet vessels murked by the Alien probe got rebranded as Enterprise NCC-1701-A

-Women constituting 90 percent of the fanzine writing/publishing population in Star Trek fandom is brought up and confirmed by people deep into Star Trek fanzine lore.

-Camille Bacon-Smith's moderately deep dive into Star Trek fanzine culture, Spock Among the Women, is transcribed and shared for educational purposes to the SF-LOVERS mailing list (Spock Among the Women originally appeared in the November 16th 1986 Sunday edition of the New York Times newspaper).

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 04

34% completion, 135 bookmarks

-Continued LORD OF THE RINGS language chat, with one SFLer going back to the Hobbit and Gandalf being unable to read elfish script correctly.

-The 1985-1986 reviewer-idiotking of the SF-LOVERS mailing list posts a review of the 1958 movie HIDDEN FORTRESS (not being the inspiration for lots of visuals in Star Wars: A New Hope) so brain-dead, everyone starts dunking on him with detailed illuminating reviews of SciFi & Fantasy stories/movies/cartoons/Anime/Manga that they have come across.

-Someone goes next level stalker and posts Harlan Ellison's phone number to the SF-LOVERS mailing list; encouraging other people to call Ellison out-of-the-blue like he did. Most of the SFL has a "WTF, dude..seriously WTF" reaction, while the person who posted Harlan Ellison's phone number to the internet triples-down and says that Ellison likes fan contact/gets off on the adversarial phone calls he makes/made to Ellison. 

-Proto-otaku's start to emerge in the SFL Archives with posts like "Congratulations! You have just discovered the world of Japanese Manga (comic books)." and Subject:Japanese Animation: An Introduction for the Uninitiated". Most of the 1986 proto-otaku's/all-things-Japan subject matter experts come from the ARPANET node at the University of Waterloo Canada

-People start complaining about BAEN BOOKS repacking decades old Keith Laumer stories as new content.

-Yet another installment of the "Advice requested for a <1986> new author looking to get published" and the responses.

-SHORT CIRCUIT the movie comes out and someone low-key compares it to John Sladek's story TIK TOK.

-A weird bit of SciFi pulp fiction creeps out. In 1948 or early 1949, a anonymous person sent in a fake review of the upcoming October or November 1949 issue of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION magazine, complete with author & story title listing. John W. Campbell bit, and low-key contacted the authors listed in that fake review ASF review and had them write SciFi stories using those story titles, and then published everything listed in that fake review. JW Campbell then used that gag as a editorial hook-line about how Science Fiction can become a Self-Fulfilling prophecy.

(2020 note: I haven't googled any this so far. Currently hope that it was real and not someone making up a fake story to burnish how amazing JW Campbell was an editor/human being/lover)

-1980's tv series REMINGTON STEEL has been canceled, and it looks like Pierce Brosnan is going to be the next James Bond in "THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS" (2020 note: I know what happened IRL regarding this)

-Another joint Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle book starts getting discussed....this time it is FOOTFALL @1985, and some of the SFLer descriptions of the plot and aliens and actions taken in it sort of has me thinking Footfall is one of canon sources for the ugly-as-fucking-hell scifi Web Comic Shlock mercenary 

-THIS ISLAND EARTH, a 1955 movie starts getting mentioned because it appeared as clips in a recent Steven Spielberg movie (The Explorers or the Goonies, or possibly an episode of Amazing Stories)

-Medicare for all, aka the old pulp SciFi story about "a libertarian being unable to pay the grossly inflated hospital bill for his daughters birth, so he lets the hospital raise her and educate her until the daughter grows old enough to pay it off herself" gets mentioned. (2020 note: I read this story a few years ago and slight spoiler the hospital almost bankrupted itself trying to calculate all the interest due when the daughter-raised-by-the-hospital was about graduate college)

-L Neil Smith, founder of the Libertarian Hugo Award and all the bizarre things that 1986 era SFLers were able to dig up on L Neil Smith, like winning the award he founded 3 times, and writing a libertarian novel where the default libertarian heroes had to travel in time to stop Jane Fonda, in full 1980's exercise mode, from destroying the future's beautiful libertarian utopia

-Bruce Sterling's SCHISMATRIX comes up for one of the first times in SFL Archives history. (2020 note: Schismatrix was a ground-defining book for post-humanity stories...and pretty much everything else Bruce Sterling has written can safely be ignored). 

-HARD TO BE A GOD, the Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky Noon Universe setting story about a Progessor agent going undercover in a off-planet medieval civilization comes up for the first time in SFL Archives history. 

-The DOCTOR WHO series possibly maybe casting a female Doctor Who ends up as another fan-baiting "f**k you" rumor by John Nathan-Turner

-First mention of CJ Cherryh's 1985 novel CUCKOO'S EGG in the SFL Archives 

-1986 SFL people continue debating Tolkien lore throughout April 1986 into early June 1986 and gradually come to the conclusion that GANDALF IS ILLITERATE

(2020 take: Thanks to this, 2020 me now thinks of pre-scourging Gandalf the Grey as a Charlie Kelly guy, happy to chill with idiot hobbits because Saruman is Dennis Reynolds. Which would make Sweet Dee Reynolds = Radagast aka the "Bird Wizard". Mac would be the two unknown LotR Blue Wizards, symbolizing Mac before he came out and Mac after he came out. Frank would be Tom Bombadil, with either Gail the Snail or Roxy the whore as Bombadil's bang-buddy Goldberry. The McPoyles are Elrond and his clan. And of course, Rickety Cricket is Gollum) 

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 03

 Certain topics have cropped up again and again periodically in the SFL Archives read-through.

 Larry Niven's KNOWN SPACE/DOWN IN FLAMES, matter transportation, filkchat, childrens tv shows, etc..luckily each time the discussion on <reoccuring-subject> has focused on something new rather than rehashing old-arguments.

-Relative newcomer to the book publishing field BAEN BOOKS (established 1983) is getting referenced more and more.

-V the series. SFLers still can't get over why the Visitor's came to Earth for H20 aka water when water is freely available in so many other places. 

(2020 take: Replacing water with biologicals would have worked better. Think of how coffee plants originally only grew in South America, or how tasty spices mostly grew in the tropics, and the Mace/Nutmeg spice island being traded 1:1 for the city-island New Amsterdam aka New York City. Now make that intergalactic, and the Visitors are coming for this rare delicacy called "potatoes" or "crab-apples".)

-Sometime in late 1985 Samuel Delany's DHALGREN starts being used a test for the top tier of SFF fandom or "fendom" (a mispelling of fans/fandom which SFF fans adopted similar to "filksongs")

(2020 sidenote: Everyone involved in filksongs, I hate you. Entirely.)

essentially the Dhalgren test is:
If you managed to read Dhalgren completely and like it, you pass the test. -Samuel Delany megafans.
If you think Dhalgren is overblown and/or garbage, f**k you you goddamn fake fen -also Samuel Delany megafans.

(2020 Sidenote: Someone in the SFL Archives stated that Samuel R Delany circa the 1980s had multiple health issues ranging from no short term memory, epilepsy, seizures, [sarcasm]Assassins Creed Eagle Sense, the power to turn water into mead[/sarcasm], etc. Contributing to why Delany's writing and stories do not follow normal storytelling conventions, and why they found Delany so inspiring.
How much of that (outside of my sarcasm tags) was bullshit or real? I don't really follow Samuel R Delany because he creeps me out hard on a "acclaimed French Writer Gabriel Matzneff" level. )

-BRIDGE OF BIRDS gets mentioned for the first time in SFL archives as well as similar themed stories

-Someone in late 1985 mentions a bunch of "intelligent dolphin" stories that aren't David Brin's Uplift setting and wants more. DolphinF**ker is inexplicably not the author of those posts.

-Matter transportation comes back as a topic of discussion in late 1985, but focuses on souls/who is the original in 1985 vs the earlier "how do they transmit all that data" and "how do they *STORE* all that data" debates.

-The 1985 version o KNOWN SPACE/DOWN IN FLAMES discussion focuses on how Larry Niven's Protector book syncs up with the rest of the Known Space series and the Ringworld. lots of interesting ideas and theories that Niven will never deal with sadly.

-A throw-away reference to female fans being advised to avoid Isaac Asimov if encountered alone at scifi-conventions

-BACK TO THE FUTURE 1 came out in July 1985, and discussion about time-line split-offs with Marty 1 timeline, Marty 1955 timelines, and who goes where/who gets replaced kicks off. Definitely seen identical arguments on this same subject on SA threads.

-November 5th being a frequent "go to/execute/the movie happens now" date for time travel stories comes up and never gets resolved (so far)

-Author nepotism, SFL authors dissing other SFL authors, SFL authors arguing about Hugo & Nebula awards, more author self-doxxes

-Book publisher f**kery part 36: publishers f**king up basic things like getting the authors name spelled correctly (or listed at all!), and f**king up the book title on book spines/title pages on 1st printing runs

-The 2nd hand story of how Jerry Pournelle lost his guest account arpanet access. Pournelle did *something* and "refuses to suck up to the post-grad" managing the ARPANET node to get his ARPANET guest account back.

-Reminisces about Theodore Sturgeon's career brought up the cringy-amusing time a fan invoked STURGEON'S LAW at Theodore Sturgeon during a SciFi convention panel by directly quoting excerpts from some of Sturgeon's crappier stories at him.

-Part two of people asking how to get in contact with authors. This time some of the self-avowed/self-doxxed SFL authors respond back on the best methods to do so(contact publishing company/ask a research desk librarian). Think I skipped mentioned part one which happened circa 1982? because back then it was clear the people asking weren't satisfied with merely sending letters, they wanted direct no limits one on one access.

originally posted August 27th - September 2nd in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 

SFL Archives Vol 03 readthrough update 02

 In my recaps of reading the SFL archives, I tend to not mention: outdated science/physics chat, FTL travel vs STL chat, scifi tv series episode listings, topical scifi/fantasy movie reviews or topical scifi/fantasy book reviews, identify-this story for me requests, childrens tv programming of the 50's/60's/70's chat, religion debates, Hugo/Nebula award nominations + award winners chat, "what is the Force" debates?, and the many listings of upcoming global scifi conventions/results of just finished global scifi conventions.

-Vernor Vinge's age of cyberspace TRUE NAMES came out and was reviewed favorably by most SFL members. Douglas Adams 1st & 2nd HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY series books were released in the US, and had less favorable reviews. No one has really discussed Gene Wolfe's 1981 CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR or 1980 BOOK OF THE NEW SUN so far, but things might change.

-Back in 1981, Lucas Films and NPR collaborated to make a radio drama out of STAR WARS: A New Hope the movie with Mark Hamill (which maybe kickstarted Hamill's prolific voice-acting career) & Anthony Daniels (C3PO), plus a bunch of ringers. As a moderate Star Wars fan, the existence of the 1981 Star Wars radio drama, and spoiler alert the existence of the other original SW trilogy radio dramas got memory-holed harder than David Proust, the body-actor of Darth Vader

-A profile of Ralph Bakshi, 1970s-80s cartoonist I mostly remember for the unsettling-blobby artwork in Bakshi's Lord of the Rings movies. Bakshi promoted his other animation efforts, including a movie about black America called....uh even posting the movie name will end in a probe so just look it up yourself or if that's too much effort, think of the "badly aged Eric Cartman super-hero persona" and uh make it more racist.

e: I was remembering the unsettling and blobbly artwork from Rankin/Bass animatted movie efforts like the HOBBIT 1977, not Bakshi's work.

-Larry Niven's DOWN IN FLAMES, the 1968/1977 unofficial abandoned conclusion to the Known Space/Ringworld series finally got described in detail Everything you know about the Known Space setting is a hoax. Down in Flames discussion was interesting enough that I read it myself, and no bullshit it is better than everything Niven proceeded to write about the Ringworld and Known Space setting for the next 8 books.

If you do choose to see Down in Flames as Known Space/Ringworld canon, you can safely abandon the Ringworld series after the 1st Ringworld book aka Ringworld 1970, while the remaining Known Space stories written after 1978 sort-of fit if you don't think too hard about timedates. 

-biology chat becomes the running topic of the fortnight, with DNA encoding, scifi stories about DNA encoding, goats=unicorns (which I will come back to), etc

-MENSA membership gets pimped in the SFL for the first time I can remember. The MENSA membership ad gets a faint sneery tone when mentioning alternate methods of qualifying for MENSA membership (combined SAT results or combined GRE results over certain scores will get you in under limited membership status)

-DolphinF**cker is against proposals for "permanent" assignation of phone numbers to people, for *wink* privacy reasons. *wink*

-the SFL liveposted the first manned Space Shuttle launch attempt on April 10 1981. Keyword being: attempt.

-A reposted article from the Baltimore Sun newspaper brings the 1st mention of space borne telescopes into the SFL archives. These space borne telescopes (due to be launched in 1985) will have sensors/cameras that might be able to detect extrasolar planets. 

(2020 sidenote: those extrasolar planet detecting methods mentioned in the article are still being fine-tuned today/2020 time period.)

-SPECIES movie fans will find Fred Hoyle's 1975 novel A FOR ANDROMEDA uses an eerily similar setup, but Hoyle's book series fails to implement H.R. Giger and instead goes with a deep-state conspiracy.

-the goats=unicorns thing.

Someone I didn't bother bookmarking posted about recent studies of medieval documents/myth had lead to scholars thinking that references to unicorn were really references to one-horned goats. Chapman.ES promotes his friend from the Berkeley area named Morning Glory who showed off a unicorn-goat named Lancelot at the February 1981 Berkeley Fantasy Worlds Convention. When asked about Lancelot the goat-unicorn, Chapman.ES said that Morning Glory and her husband mentioned a careful breeding plan that two years ago resulted in Lancelot. Additionally......something akin to Bonsai helped out, but Morning Glory couldn't go into more details because they were trying to patent the process.

(emphasis mine)

People replied back to Chapman.ES mentioning common farm practices of de-horning livestock. And then other people ran with that and suggested maybe two goat horns got fused together in Lancelot's case, or maybe shortly after birth, one horn got removed totally with the other horn bud moved/shifted over. Chapman.ES flipped the fuck out and went full "I take exception to your slur upon Morning Glory and her husband, and your suggestion that they are charlatans. These are sincere people, who are into mysticism, it is true, but just because you don't agree with their world view doesn't mean you have to insult them."....and so on for another 70-90 lines.

-Didn't think I'd find something to top Bakshi's hyper badly aged 'black america in the south' animated movie within less than 24 hrs, however someone in the SFL mentioned that H Beam Piper's LITTLE FUZZY was ripping off a earlier story.....and they weren't making things up.

A semi-famous World War 2 french resistance member slash author wrote "LES ANIMAUX DENATURES" or "YOU SHALL KNOW THEM" in it's english language translation.

story recap: tribes of "missing link" hominids are found in the jungles of new guinea, and exploited as an cheap workforce similar to "war with the newts". Scientist-perverts or just normal perverts discover that the missing link hominids <ugh> can get pregnant with <ugh> human sperm <quadruple ugh>. One of the scientist-perverts impregnates a missing link hominid with his sperm then kills the baby once it is born; under the reasoning that the ensuing trial will determine if the missing link hominids are human (and therefore deserve human rights) or not.

Adding to the weirdness/wtf factor, a Burt Reynolds movie called SKULLDUGGERY is a loose adaption of "les animaux denatures". 

originally posted between July 1st- July 3rd in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 03 readthrough update 01

-All the hopefulness posting about the Space Shuttle program in January 1981 makes me sad. These 1981 people had no idea what kind of disappointments lay ahead for the Space Shuttle program. "space filling foam" and "picking up shuttle tiles" SFL comments aged particularly badly. 

-Lots of 1960's/1970's/1980 era computer hardware failure stories/urban myths have been the exclusive topic of discussion for the past week or so. 4 parts urban myth stories to 3 parts "seen by a friend/me stories" to 1 part "destroying hardware is cool, here is how I *wink* would *wink* theoretically* wink* do so *wink*". That 1 part being so enthusiastic is another chapter in seeing Robert Tappan Morris's hijinks in a more sympathetic light.

(2020 sidenote: For people who never saw or dealt with 1960's/1970's/1980's computer hardware, in your head picture the following:

the TONKA school of design but everything built is extremely heavy, very fragile, and poorly welded in a era where OSHA compliance was people making you put money in the office swear-jar after you said "OH SHi--" during a nasty hardware failure event.)

-Jerry Pournelle posted a Press Release teaser for OATH OF FEALTY, his 1981 co-written with Larry Niven book about :sigh: hardcore libertarian's solving all of society's problems. (either genuinely never heard of this book before or I blocked all memories of it after reading because of it's terribleness. it's probably the 2nd thing, I hunted down Niven stories growing up)

-STAR WARS fan-fiction legality and gay characters appearing/not appearing in official Star Wars products.

-filksongs continue to appear and continue to annoy me (filksongs are/were SFF fan lyics karaoked over popular songs) enough to finally mention them in a "Let's read the SFL archives" post.

-The first appearance of "do my <college mathematics course> homework/research for me" appeared in the SFL archives around mid January 1981.

- The 1981 LastCon in Albany NY cosplay contest winner was a lady wearing "a costume of Luke riding a Taun-Taun", and then "all people in costume should go down to the disco and truly freak out the mundanes."...which happened, but the disco's bouncer bounced the Luke-on-Taun-Taun cosplayer.

(2020 sidenote: to read the full story of Lastcon 1981, search SFL Vol 03 for [[ DP@MIT-ML 01/28/81 00:25:49 Re: Lastcon report ]].)

-LS.MELTSNER made a series of posts about why they find hard-core libertarianism books so unrealistic, which kicked off a debate about libertarism in fiction featuring the heinlein defense squad.

-Robert Forward and a SFL troll in rare non-troll mode both posted "advice for new writers circa 1981". reposting both messages as historical data for the authors/aspiring authors reading this thread.

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

Date: 18 JAN 1981 1102-PST

From: FORWARD at USC-ECL

Subject: Amateur Author Query

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine has a few sheets of

advice and instructions to new writers that you should get, read,

and follow. Send a self-addressed stamped long business-size

envelope and a note requesting "Advice to Authors" to: IASFM,

Box 13116, Philadelphia, PA 19101.

After you have written your short story (following George

Scither's advice), then just mail it to one of the science fiction

magazines, where it will be read BY THE EDITOR. Most people don't

believe it, but ALL manuscripts to Analog, IASFM, and Omni are at

least glanced at by the respective editors. The only winnowing

that is done by the editorial assistants is to 1) make sure that

your name and address is on the manuscript, 2) the return envelope

has postage on it, 3) it is double-spaced, single-sided, and in

english, 4) is a story, not a letter. The assistant then makes

two piles, one of stories from authors that have published before,

and another of those that are not so familiar sounding. The first

stack gets the editors attention right away, but that only takes

a few hours, the editor then devotes the rest of his time, and

his commuting time on train or plane searching through the "slush"

pile for that great gem, a new author. George Scithers has been

averaging one new author an issue.

You do get paid for stories by the professional magazines.

5-7 cents per word by the digest size ones, up to $500-1500 by

Omni. You will also receive a contract outlining the rights

they are buying. You should only sell "first world English

language serial rights" to your copyright.

As for copyrights, you are protected under the new law when

you type "Copyright (c) 1980 by Ima Newauthor" on the front page.

When the story is published by the magazine, and IF they send in

the two copies and the filing fee to the Register of Copyrights,

then your copyright is automatically registered.

Any other questions?

Bob Forward

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

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

Date: 18 JAN 1981 2203-EST

From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: first stories

SALES are easy. You just keep sending out everything you write

to every conceivable market, and sooner or later something will

catch on. This can take a \long/ time, but it works for most

people who have the persistence. Obvious markets: the editorial

offices (listed on the contents pages) of ANALOG, ASIMOV'S, F&SF,

AMAZING/FANTASTIC if you have little pride and no expectation of

being paid, OMNI for the thrill. Note that Asimov's will send a

style sheet (in fact, they request that you send for it before

sending them anything) on format for a submitted manuscript;

it's very helpful.

COPYRIGHT: state on the title page "Copyright [c-in-a-circle]

[year] by [your name]"; under the revised law this is sufificient

until the manuscript is actually published, at which point other

factors are managed by the publisher. \Always/ keep a carbon for

evidence, reference, and the perversity of the Post Offal.

MONEY: Usually a zine has a fixed rate per word, sliding downward

for longer material. None of the above are entitled to publish the

story for free, although there are magazines of legend which paid

authors only on threat of lawsuit. Others pay on acceptance or

publication.

REVIEWING: This is the hardest part. Asking friends is a good way

to get sweetened criticism and/or drive them away. Frequently an

editor who sees some promise in a work will take some time to point

outflaws, although a commentless bounce doesn't mean it's hopeless;

editors vary and I don't know what current personal policies are.

The National Fantasy Fan Federation has a story contest which may

get you some useful comments; the one with 12/1/80 deadline was

managed by Donald Franson, 6543 Babcock Ave., North Hollywood CA

91606; he should know about next year's contest. If you're \really/

serious about this, there are some good beginning writers' workshops,

and a lot of terrible ones.

ADVICE: Magazines are frequently in need of good short material,

although such will often take longer to appear once sold. First

novels without a published background and/or a sponsor are difficult

to sell, although you could always try Manor Books if you can think

of a good pseudonym. Once you sell something, you are eligible to

join SF Writers of America, an organization with many flaws but

some overriding virtues; do so.

GOOD LUCK! And let us all know when you sell something.

------------------------------ 

originally posted between June 29th - June 30th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 02 readthrough update 01

 SF-LOVERS Digest Vol 02 is a much harder read than Vol 01 since I am finding lots of things in it more interesting and forcing myself to not get too side-tracked when really interesting stories got mentioned (for example, Clifford Simak's WAY STATION). This where I start short-handing all references to the SF-LOVERS Mailing List Digest into the SFL or the SFL Archives.

-Matter teleportation chat kicked off Vol 02, which then morphed into "how do you transport the data site to site with matter teleportation" chat, which have currently morphed into debates about using Godel numbers for encoding/transmitting/deciphering data across interstellar distances to alien lifeforms/races.

-GODEL NUMBERS aka GODEL NUMBERING is a cool concept. Just not so sure how other races/lifeforms across the galaxies would instinctively "know" to factor down the Godel numbers into their prime components or even understand the numbering scheme used in the first place. 

-20% completion into SFL Archives Vol 02, for the last twenty or so posts in the SF-LOVERS mailing list people have been ripping apart Robert Heinlein and it's glorious. Heinlein's NUMBER OF THE BEAST (@1980) was so self-indulgent it ripped the blinders off the eyes of many post-grad SFL posters that formerly tolerated or had fond memories of Heinlein stories growing up......

(2020 sidenote: Which is retroactively amusing slash interesting because the current tier of Big Name/Big Sales SciFi genre authors like John Ringo, John Scalzi, and Charles Stross were hitting their formative pre-teens - teens around 1980 and all of them ended up loving everything Heinlein has ever written/have rewritten multiple Heinlein stories/Heinlein book series.) 

-Arguments about Larry Niven's KNOWN SPACE setting and Larry Niven's RINGWORLD books being incompatible or (my view) existing in alternate universes. Lots of the Ringworld books weirdness & it not meshing with Niven's Known Space stories passed me by whenever I read any of the Ringworld books because I was very creeped out by all the pervy sex fantasies Niven was one-handedly writing out.

-First SF-LOVERS appearance of Jerry E Pournelle, noted author, dream-weaver, visionary plus actor plus PhD in political science. Pournelle rips apart the 20 yrs in the future environmental forecast GLOBAL 2000 REPORT (a state of the world in 2000 guessimate report).

-Robert Heinlein style Libertarianism starts getting name dropped/espoused more and more. And always used in Heinlein-ian phrasing and pre-constructed Heinlein-ian arguments, nothing original is allowed.

-Someone's friend who never got into scifi watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and made the valid arguments that:

"There is no question that George Lucas is creating the mythology which will be coloring the subconscious of the growing generation, just like Walt Disney's characters are forever a part of my psyche. That's why The Empire Strikes Back makes me so angry. It is merely a rehash of old war movies with all their worst cliches and pat killings intact. But even John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, in all their male-buddy-kill-the-Krauts (or Injuns) showed some compassion - if for nothing else than their horses. But the Taun-Taun in TESB doesn't rate such compassion. It has the audacity to freeze to death and stink in the process. The whole film just glorifies killing....."

Many many long-time SF-LOVERS posters rebutted back with, and I am paraphrasing here "No No No. You are wrong, do not insult my Favs, you are very wrong and need to grow up"

(2020 sidenote: For the record, I agree with the someone's friend who never got into scifi viewpoint.) 

originally posted between June 24th - June 25th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 01 readthrough update 02

 SFL Archives Vol 01 42% completion

-Both Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle make the humble-brag claim at a 1980 MIT lecture called "How to get Rich Quick" that "they, and many other experienced authors write without editing their work" (DGSHARP@MIT-AI 02-13-1980). Robert Forward chimed in a few days later to "clarify" Niven and Pournelle's statements  about the  "never editing" or revising their work statements that Niven and Pournelle made at that 1980 MIT Lecture. Robert Forward tosses in the humble-brag of  (literal quote from Robert Forward)"Poul Anderson and me both agonize over each word at least 6 or 8 times before the final draft is sent into the publishers." 

-An early collaborative fantasy-scifi world setting called Darkover keeps getting mentioned over and over again in the SF-LOVERS. However, this is one of the things that have aged super badly because Marion Zimmer Bradley was a major contributor to the Darkover series...and keeps getting praised for writing strong female characters in the Darkover stories. Ughh.

-During discussion of black main characters, SALawrence@MIT-Multics brought up Richard Lupoff's novel THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE FLIES because of it's sheer weirdness. The Sacred Locomotive Flies had a white main character but almost everyone else in the book was secretly black and appeared to be white-people by taking a weird drug that changed their skin color and also made them obese as a side-effect. This book sounds weird enough that I've added it to my "try to find it" list

-More retroactively weird Star Wars stuff. Fanzines named BANTHA TRACKS (great user name btw) and ALDERAAN. One on one interviews with David Prouse, the body-actor actively erased from Star Wars by Lucas and Disney. Bootleg SW character themes & SW themed albums before John Williams scores became the default Star Wars sound.

-Richard Stallman (RMS@MIT-AI) just popped up on the SF-LOVERS mailing list for the first time ever. Noticed it was him from the EMACS humblebrag and the omnipresent RMS handle. Just checked, RMS only posted 3 times in the Vol 01 SF-LOVERS Digest. 2nd time was debating about Darth Vader really being Luke's father and 3rd time was to nitpick a core piece of Robert Forward's novel Dragons Egg.

-Mentioning Philip Jose Farmer ripping off Roger Zelazny brought some feedback.

SomethingAful user jng2058 posted on June 20, 2020:

   That's a pretty harsh mischaracterization of what went on. I'm holding a third printing of Sign of the Unicorn and it's dedication is "For Jadawin and his Demiurge, not to forget Kickaha." Those being the main characters of "The World of Tiers," of course. You don't dedicate your book to the characters of a novel series you're homaging if you're worried they're going to sue you. For that matter, outside the barest of story beats of "dude on Earth encounters people of great power and then discovers he's one of those people afflicted with amnesia", the stories diverge pretty quickly.

    And it's not like you can sue over general story points anyhow, or else there'd be no end to the lawsuits between "guy with gun shoots a lot of bad guys" authors. Fer f*ck's sake, Paolini's Inheritance Cycle is just Star Wars with Dragons, with the movie for Eragon being even more so, and no one ever sued about that shit, and those are multi-billion dollar corporations with lawyers on staff whose job is to sue over shit like that.

    Perhaps most importantly we should remember that "good authors borrow, great authors steal." Whether you think Amber "sucked and was derivative" or not, the books were very popular and most people here know what you're talking about when you mention them, and a good percentage of us have read them. Far fewer have so much as heard of "The World of Tiers", much less seen a copy to read. Taking an existing story and transforming it and improving it such that no one remembers the original is the mark of a great writer.

    Unless you think Shakespeare adapting the lives of an obscure Danish prince and a thane of Scotland into two of the greatest tragedies in the English language was "derivative". :rolleyes:

My SomethingAwful forums response to jng2058:

Calm the f**k down.

Or get mad at AQE@MIT-MC and their 03-19-1980 post "Re: Similarities between "World of Tiers" and "Amber" which I quoted.

Lots of people in this thread and the previous SF&F mega-thread have commented that Zelazny's Amber series isn't the greatest and was at best written for the paycheck.

Originally posted Jun 20, 2020 18:15 on the SomethingAwful forums Book Barn Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3 thread