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 12a readthrough update 02

 39% completion, 40 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 01

16% completion, 26 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 09 readthrough update 01

 SFL Vol 09 started off poorly.

-The first real message of 1984 was about David Eddings latest BELEGARIAD book being delayed. Then Vol 09 Digest 02 started off with Marion Zimmer Bradley recommendations. If only the SFL posters from 1984 knew what is now known about Eddings & MZB. Hoping for minimal MZB & Eddings discussion in the rest of SFL Vol 09, in fact I would gladly read 3 solid months of only filk-song chat and filk-song lyrics posting if MZB & Eddings never came up again in SFL Vol 09. 

V the 1980's tv-series making zero sense on multiple levels caused much SFL discussion

-STAR TREK 3 came out and and also caused much SFL discussion

-Lots and lots of discussion-arguments about "time travel for profit" using banks/investing/trade.

-Someone reposted all the Hitchhikers Guide to the Net parody/homage series and hate filled my soul.

-Marion Zimmer Bradley chat cropped up repeatedly along with filk chat and more "old time religion" filk-song series. Hate continued to rise.

-The SFL archives version of BravestOfTheLamps is Jeff Duntemann on a never ending quest to determine what SFF stories/what SFF authors are of literary merit

-BackStabMod reappeared in the SFL archives as a "normal" poster after less than 2 months of being "off the ARPANET" forever. Still going to call them BackStabMod forever though, just like DolphinF**ker will forever be called DolphinF**ker

-A whole lot of SFLers are doing "my non-online friend says: CONTROVERSIAL TAKE" posting

-Dean Ing gets mentioned for the first time in the SFL archives. Dean Ing was/is a batshit crazy mil-scifi survivalist author obsessed with airplanes, cowboys, technology, the old west, and the sex life of boars.

-Terry Pratchett gets mentioned for the first time in the SFL archives as well, regarding huge scale "built world" story recommendations, which definitely applies to Terry Pratchett's STRATA.

-a Tekumel RPG/Empire of the Petal Throne RPG novel gets pimped/reviewed/counter-reviewed.

-many people ask for Libertarian fiction recommendations, resulting in multiple Libertarian fiction recs, which I won't inflict on this thread other than saying 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999919999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999993999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 of the Libertarian stories mentioned in the replies are exactly as stupid and trite as Shakespearean plays.

-William Gibson's NEUROMANCER came out, and most of the SFL likes it. Personal opinion: Worse thing in Neuromancer is the character archetypes, which Gibson will reuse and reuse until you are sick of them.

-Scifi magazine/book cover-art chat devolves-evolves into Queen the Band discussion/Day the Earth Stood Still/cover artist chat, which purged about 80% of the hatred in my soul from the earlier mentioned MZB chat & filk-song lyric posts.

-Lauren Weinstein takes some lithium/finally calms the fuck down about WARGAMES 1983 enough to promise IMDB style episode summaries of the Outer Limits tv-show

originally posted August 1st - August 8th 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