SFL Archives Vol 14 readthrough update 02

SFL Archives Vol 14

7.5 mb raw text file

100% completion, 104 book marks

-The 1989 Aprils Fool gimmick for the SFL Archives was that there was SFL Digests sent out the week leading up to  April Fools 1989 and for a few days after. AKA No April Fools jok posts allowed in the SF-LOVERS mailing list for 1989.

1989 technology references: Vacuum welding and the real-world feasiblity of Larry Niven Known Space style mono-molecule weapons/devices.

-STAR TREK 5, BATMAN 1989 & James Cameron's THE ABYSS come out. Batman 1989 & The Abyss break brains across the SFL, while ST5 is mostly discussed for the climbing anti-gravity boots & most of the TOS cast acting out-of-character. Peter Jackson's 1989 movie BAD TASTE also gets briefly discussed.

-BATMAN 1989 breaks SFL brains by being unlike the Adam West tv series, unlike the Frank Miller Dark Knight comic series, and by starring Michael Keaton, and Jack Nicholson. The Batcave and how it exists, the Batmobile and Batplane, the heavily armored Batsuit, Bruce Wayne acting weird, The Joker's murderous gadgets,and Batman being a Ninja.

(2020 note: One SFLer made a series of posts so angry and detailed and emphatic about Batman being a Ninja that I now refer to them as NinjaExpert)

-James Cameron's THE ABYSS breaks brains in a more technical way, every third SFL Digest sent between July 1989 - early August 1989 was dedicated to the ABYSS discussion. SFLer hating the various actors, anger at SEALs not doing that in real life, Inconsistencies between the movie and the novelization, aliens, alien cities, scuba, deep sea O2 breathing mixes, and ASCII flowcharts of how diving regulators work, and a whole bunch more. 

-First mention of Iain M Banks CONSIDER PHLEBAS, then discussion of Iain Banks non SF books like WASP FACTORY, etc.

-First appearance of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION BORG chat.

-Sting the musician-actor's non-DUNE movie acting work.

-One or two SFLer's think John Brunner borrowed the framing device of STAND On ZANZIBAR from John Dos Passos trilogy "USA".

-First rumors of a live action JUDGE DREDD movie, with Sylvester Stallone rumored to be in the Judge Dredd role. 

(2020 note: 1989 SFLer's scoff at that idea, but....yeah. It was real, all of it.)

-Novelization of the Infocom game PLANETFALL gets one positive review.

-The Heinlein Defense Squad tries comparing Robert Anson Heinlein positively to Sir James Burton, but no-one takes the bait.

-The SFWA white knight SFL poster finally and conclusively outs themselves as editor of the fanzine OTHER REALMS, which now explains all the sucking up/worshipful references to SF&F authors, and snitching on any negative to the SFWA/anyone with editorship roles in the SF&F genres. 

-Franchised out SF universes, such as Asimov's Robot City and Roger Zelazny's "Clypsis" series, all of which SFLers are certain will still be discussed/still be published 20 years down the road.

(2020 note: Yeah, that didn't happen. I think 99% of the mentioned franchised out SF universes died out within 18 months of SFL this discussion.)

-A 1989 READERCON flyer describes Samuel R Delany as the "Woody Allen of SF". This comparison aged extremely badly or extremely well depending on how you view Woody Allen & Samuel R Delany.

-A SFLer outs their fetish, TWICE, for Jack Chalker type fantasies where shape changing/physical transformation  and body swapping are key parts of the story.

-SFLer's appreciating when authors put in the work to research the topics they write about in their stories (William R. Forstchen being part of a medieval reenactment catapult crew gets mentioned).

-SFLer's discuss the Penny Farthing bicycle explanation that only happened in the "lost" THE PRISONER episode

-Bad Technology in SF story discussion (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Niven Known Space, etc).

-News that 1980's TV series BEAUTY & THE BEAST starring Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman is cancelled/not getting renewed on CBS. Meanwhile the ALIEN NATION tv series & QUANTUM LEAP both premiere to mostly positive SFL reaction, and FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE TV series finally gets discussed as the final episodes of it air.

-WorldCon 1989 happens, all of the extended drama over 1989 Hugo Award illegal vote counting is quickly ignored once the physical awards come out.

-Arthurian Mythos discussion crops up again for 6 or so SFL Digests. More reference materials & lists of Arthurian Mythos works get posted.

-Daniel Keys Moran and his threatened thirty three novel series TALES OF THE CONTINUING TIME discussion.

-The Suicide of a West German Hacker involved in hacking a bunch of US government servers/sites gets a brief mention.

(2020 note: The dead hacker, Karl Koch, was one of "stars" or featured people in Cliff Stohl's mostly non-fictional CUCKOOS EGG which discussed how the hackers were detected and how the hackers were eventually arrested.)

-Portage cost for open parties at the Worldcon 1989 hotels got some SFL outrage. So did the SF-LOVERS mailing list getting a unofficial WorldCon (non-Hugo Award), however the biggest thing was very negative reactions to a female author only award being announced/premiered during the 1989 Hugo Awards ceremony.  

-The Willimantic CT book publisher (Zeiss Press?)  that specialized in Gene Wolfe small press runs moves across country to California in July 1989

-The Denver Post newspaper announces a  new Science Fiction themed cable network television channel, to be called the SCI-FI CHANNEL

-An SFLer with way too much time on their hands did a A-Z index listing for everything in the (as of 1989) 4 book series HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams.

-Another year passes and another solitary SFL question asking if anyone, anyone at all knows if MORIGU: THE DESECRATION by Mark C Perry has a sequel. 

-Dan Simmon's HYPERION, 1st book of William Shatner's TEKWAR series, WAITING FOR THE GALACTIC BUS & it's sequel THE SNAKE OIL WARS, WARDAY, THE ETERNITY BRIGADE, COLD COMFORT FARM, and ACROSS THE COSMOS being supposedly being plagiarized twice by the same person/sold to two different publishers.

-The 1989 version of BACK TO THE FUTURE series discussion focuses on Biff, and the Biff's various timelines, and BACK TO THE FUTURE 3.

-TOR Books doing a total recall & replace on Walter Jon Williams novel ANGEL STATION because of non-existent quality control.

-Fantasy and Science Fiction stories with music or musicians as core pieces of the story.

-Pop Culture Vampire & Werewolf Lore, and how to stop/cause Vampire & Werewolf outbreaks discussion.

-Request for advice on long term storage of Books in a warehouse/self-storage facility.

-1989 version of Matter transportation discussion: What is the Earliest Matter Transportation story in existence?

-A DIANE DUANE identity thief-impersonator-imposter has re-appeared and is active in the U.S.A. after a decade long break/prison time.

-The very first SFL Archives mention of BABYLON 5,the tv series about 2 years before I expected it.

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

Date: 3 Oct 89 19:56:57 GMT

From: jas@isi.edu (Jeff Sullivan)

Subject: Re: ALIEN NATION - Just another cop series.

J. Michael Straczynski is trying to package a SF series of his called

"Babylon 5."  He says that it will do for SF on TV what Hill Street did for

Cop stories.

We'll see.  He says the financing is almost locked, and it should air next

fall.

Jeffrey A. Sullivan

Senior Systems Programmer

Information Sciences Institute

University of Southern California

jas@venera.isi.edu

jas@isi.edu

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

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 03

 60% completion, 130 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Filk Song publisher drama that I refuse to recap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Death notices for Clifford Simak & Robert Anson Heinlein. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 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 12a readthrough update 05

100% completion, 89 bookmarks

-An SFLer attends the Doctor Who USA Tour, and gets info on the upcoming DOCTOR WHO series straight from 7th Doctor Who actor Sylvester McCoy. Trivial details about the 7th Doctor Who costuming and logo/theme songs changes are disclosed.  

-SIGN OF CHAOS, the 3rd new Roger Zelazny AMBER book is due out October 1987, and Zelazny has signed a contract for two more Merlin of Chaos sequels. Announcement for Robert Heinlein's upcoming TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET in July 1987. (2020 note: TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET is a trap book. Do not read this book, Do not read this book.)

-SFLer's relate the first SF stories that they read/the SF&F fiction they grew up reading pt 35: this time it's TOM SWIFT and DOC SAVAGE coming up in SFLer's memories. And now being able to catch the un-named cameo appearances of Tom Swift and Doc Savage that F&SF authors like Zelazny  put in some of their lighter stories of the 1960's-70's.  

-SF&F book cover artists not researching their work/having a clue about the content inside the book complaints. (2020 note: Don't this line of complaint will really take off until 1990-ish when Robert Jordan's first WHEEL OF TIME novel comes out. I still have fond memories of Rand(?) using invisible ski's and ski-poles on one particularly terrible WoT book cover.)

-Reviews of Douglas Adams 1st DIRK GENTLY series book start coming in, and I won't bother recapping them. You will either enjoy the Dirk Gently books or hate them. Reviews/discussion of David Brin's UPLIFT WAR start coming in. Michael Crichton's SPHERE has come out, as well as the very creeepy-in-retrospect REPLAY by Ken Grimwood.

-More DOCTOR WHO series discussion. Incarnations of the TARDIS control room, female Timelords, Companion comparisons, Doctor Who novelizations quality, fan Cosplay efforts at SF conventions often being better than official Doctor Who efforts, etc

-There has been periodic David Eddings and BELGARIAD chat through SFL Vol 12a, along with speculation to the upcoming 5 part sequel to the Belegariad series due out soon-ish. Given David Eddings child-abusing background, I choose to mention him as little as possible.

-Robert Heinlein chat continued: What was THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS main character's race (black/white/mixxed), and the mismatched color leg transplant, and Lazarus Long interactions with TCWWTW main character 

-HP Lovecraft stories and mythos starts getting discussed as June 1987 closes out, with SFler's trying to classify Lovecraft's work: is it fantasy, is it horror, is it cowboy fiction (NO)? What do SFLer's like about the stories, what movie of HP Lovecraft's stories do they recall? 

-LORD OF THE RINGS pt32553a: How racist is the LotR series since the majority of the enemies in it are dark-colored? Chosen roles of LotR via destiny or Gods mandate. Accusations of seeing things via "an American viewpoint"?

-SF&F convention discussion that is Boscone: Should "hucksters aka convention vendors" pay flat fees for access to conventions selling arenas, what membership modes are recommended for vendors, what tax-code stuff should amateur convention managers be looking at if they want to incorporate/go professional, etc.

-Balancing out the fantasy series discussion, Christopher Stasheff's WALOCK OF GRAMARYE series comes up again. Power-creepage on Gwen the wife, vs the new powers constantly being discovered in the children. The King Kobold novel story total-rewrite and how it does/doesn't fit into established Warlock series canon.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION chat starts building up once official casting news has filtered out to the general public. And people have issues with some of the casting choices and worries of how real ST:TNG episodes will sync up to established STAR TREK canon, and more importantly, how will ST:TNG affect fan-canon? Warp Speed changes from ST:TOS, communicators as badges? Un-named Klingon to be part of the crew as per Majel Roddenberry.

A SFLer tours the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION soundstages, and notes the carpeting/wall design changes from ST:TOS and breaks down the layouts of the bridge sets, engineering, transporter room, and the one generic living quarters set. Physical TNG uniform changes including color coded changes for Engineering & Command Staff, etc.

SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 04

 83% completion, 70 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-FIASCO by Stanislaw Lem. 

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

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

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

Three Comedies of American Life

Shane

The Great Gatsby

A Separate Peace

The Red Badge of Courage

A Farewell to Arms

Intruder in the Dust

Lost Horizon

Oedipus Rex

Watership Down

Deathwatch

Death Be Not Proud

Animal Farm

Tale Blazer Library

Best Short Stories

Twelfth Night

Arrangement in Literature

After the First Death

The Crucible

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Long Day's Journey Into Night

The Outsiders

The Pearl

Fahrenheit 451

Alas, Babylon

The Prince and the Pauper

The Emperor Jones

Winterset

The Man Who Came to Dinner

The Little Foxes

The Glass Menagerie

Mister Roberts

A Separate Peace

Adventures in English Literature

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies (Casebook Edition)

The Call of the Wild

Great Expectations

The Canterbury Tales

Brave New World

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Merchant of Venice

Player Piano

In Cold Blood

The Inferno (Ciardi translation)

Promethius Unbound

Oedipus the King

Hippolytus

King Lear

Ghosts

Miss Julie

On Baile's Strand

Desire Under the Elms

Wuthering Heights

Hamlet

Major British Writers

Growing Up

A Raisin in the Sun

The Old Man and the Sea

To Kill a Mockingbird

Exploring Life Through Literature

The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles

McTeague

The Fixer

Of Mice and Men

Never Cry Wolf

About David

I am the Cheese

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 08

 70% completion, 208 bookmarks

-SFLer's start discussing Bill Mumy, and Mumy's crazy career as a child actor. Mumy appeared in lots of now forgotten and now classic SF tv shows AND Mumy being the first male actor a famous sex symbol of 1960's-1970's (Bridget Bardot?) was recorded kissing on-camera.

-A crazy amount of 1950's - 1970's SF themed tv shows/TV movies half remembered by 1986 SFLer's get mentioned and discussed. LIST OF OLD SF TV SHOWS/TV Movies STARTS

The Immortals

Mr Terrific

Captain Nice

Astro-Boy

Giganor

The 8th Man

Speed Racer

Sheriff John

Space Cadet

Clutch Cargo

Colonel Bleep

Space Ghost

Marine Boy

Star Blazers

Stingray

Ultraman

Avengers

It's About Time

Space Cruiser Yamato

Tom Terrific

My Living Doll

Gerald Mc BoingBoing

Crusader Rabbit

Time Tunnel

Dark Shadows

Ultraman

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Land of the Lost 

The Invaders

Star Maidens 

U.F.O.

Matthew Star

Prince Planet

Dark Shadows

Star Prince

LIST OF OLD SF TV SHOWS/Movies ENDS

(2020 note: I plan on tracking down most of of the lesser known shows. Some of them have amazing sounding concepts, and would have run for multiple seasons or years on Netflix/AdultSwim/Hulu/HBOGo/Amazon's Prime TV if they had come out within the past 15 years.)  

-The Heinlein Defense Squad reappears to fight off rumors & pesky facts on paper that Robert Anson Heinlein loved fascism and many fascism adjacent things.

-WorldCon 1986 happens and the SFL members who attended WorldCon 1986 meet up and live-post from a portable computer terminal appliance a SFLer brings from work/college. 

-A Heinlein Defense Squad member dismissively recommended John Steakley's ARMOR if RAH's view of interstellar warfare grated on you. This counts as one of the first mentions of John Steakley's ARMOR in the SFL Archives.

-One SFLer wants to know if anyone has a recording or transcript of Orson Scott Card's WorldCon 1986 seminar "Secular Humanist Revival Meeting".

-BLOOD OF AMBER, the 2nd Merlin book of Roger Zelazny's new Amber series comes out, not much SFL Archives reaction to it so far. 

-A profile on David Lindsay, author contemporary of Jules Verne and HG Wells. As per 1986 SFLers, David Lindsay was practically required reading for a certain subset of UK culture during the 1950's - 1970's. 

-Discussion of 1960's -1970's SF themed tv shows also results in more than a few tv-show song lyrics being posted.

(2020 note: These tv show song lyric re-postings are excellent for generating tricky SF trivia questions.)

-A "Was PAN-AM offering tickets to the moon after 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY came out real or just a urban myth?" question is asked.

-Gerry Anderson tv-show U.F.O. and the details SFLer's give on it make it a prime influence/inspiration on the original X-COM game computer strategy game. 

-Someone with their hands on a legit copy of the STAR TREK 4 shooting script posts a point for point synposis, ruining the circa-2020 fun of reading wild-ass 1985/1986 guesses as to why/what/who SFLers think is in Star Trek 4.

-1986 SFL missed a lot of clues regarding Stephen Hawking & his ALS/Lou Gehrig disease. 1986 was when Stephen Hawking adopted many of the things he would be stuck in/associated in the public view with for the next 32 years

-SFLer's who know nothing about guns start to theory-craft how the caseless ammo worked in ALIENS 1986, IRL laws of physics/thermodynamics only apply when the SFLers involved in theory-crafting remember them.

-The Clint Eastwood movie FIREFOX gets mentioned mostly for Eastwood's lack of skill in speaking Russian (language).

-ACE BOOKS pirating the LORD OF THE RINGS series in the 1960's for the US paperback market comes up again. 

-Tom Clancy's RED STORM RISING gets mentioned and recommended by the what would now be classified as the resident SFL mil-fiction/mil-scifi fans.

-Reviews of the 1986 THE FLY remake focus on the extreme "gore and death"  in it compared to other movies also released in 1986.

-MISSION IMPOSSIBLE the TV 1960's series sometimes featuring near-possible gadgets, totally impossible gadgets that do impossible things, and the magic face-masks come up regarding implausiblity in films/SF tv.

-An SFLer starts to seriously read Philip K Dick's "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP", and lists the many things in it that don't hold up when whiteboarded out.

-A notable out of context quote: "If you can make a case for GREEN ACRES being SF, you can certainly do the same with DARK SHADOWS" marks one of the first times Dark Shadows the tv-series is mentioned in the SFL Archives and leads to moderate Dark Shadows discussion.

(2020 note: Dark Shadows had a phenomenonal following & cult tv show status that only really died out when the X-FILES came out.)

 

 

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 02

 -First and second appearance of  posts with the Subject Line: "JAPANESE ANIMATION" in the SFL Archives.

-Robert Heinlein's JOB gets discussed, mostly about it being slightly better than Heinlein's NUMBER OF THE BEAST thanks to Heinlein's carotid bypass surgery.

-the SFL poster whose gimmick was hiding behind the mask of his sister or possibly his wife posting his offline shit-talking to the SFL mailing list (mostly) abandons the gimmick and starts posting as themselves aka M*** L**p*r...but sometimes M*** L**p*r forgets and will still occasionally post under the old email address on the same topics.

-A murderer's row of THE PRISONER/SECRET AGENT aka DANGER MAN tv series discussion. Waves and waves of posts about the Village being filmed in Wales, with a few meta-conflicting reviews of the In-Real-Life area/resort/hotel where the Prisoner was filmed at. The Prisoner novelization discussion. Lots of theorizing how various tidbits confirm that Secret Agent aka Danger Man John Drake was really Number 06. More people answered and re-answered and replied and re-replied about the Prisoner TV series being shot in Wales than the time anyone who ever spent more than 96 hrs in San Francisco replied to the person asking if "Emperor Norton 1 of America" was real or made up.

-Steven Brust qualifies his GOR series recommendation. Sort of. Brust argument: Tolkien was popular and fantasy genre defining because Tolkien's stories sold a fuckton. Therefore, John Norman's GOR stories must be considered similarly. If you want more details, look it up yourself in SF-LOVERS Digest Volume 10, I refuse to recap or mention Steven Brust anymore.

-BACK TO THE FUTURE 1, and THE GOONIES are slated for future 1985 release. People guessing at the plot to STAR TREK 4: Voyage Home are worth noting, simply because ST4 went in a direction no-one and I mean NO ONE circa 1985 expected. V the series has it's final episode, and Silent Running (1972) becomes a subject of discussion: the robots, the nature pods, the American Airlines spaceships, the reusage of footage for the original BSG tv series, etc.

-Someone wants Advice for a new author trying to get published 1985 edition, and a few people respond . The advice is different from what got posted earlier circa 1982/83? so I will dedicate a entire post to the advice given, simply because I know there is a bunch of current and aspiring authors who read this thread 

(2020 sidenote: will do a separate blog post on this)

-More and more 1000+ word posts in the SFL Digests, you can tell who had the expensive Wangs and who didn't back in 1985. 

(2020 sidenote: that was a reference to the forgotten WANG LABS series of Wang computers/Wang computer terminals)

-Someone who missed out on the 6 solid months of SFL music chat back in 1982?/83? asked why no-one talks about music in the SFL mailing list, but it's cool because no one has mentioned filksongs in response...so far. :ninja:

-Piers Anthony non-xanth and Orson Scott Card are frequent topics of discussion....back in 1985 both those authors hadn't become what they now are. Piers Anthony had the deep-seeming Avatars series while ENDERS GAME was Card's biggest accomplishment to date

-THE GOONIES, THE EXPLORERS, COCOON, LIFEFORCE and BACK TO THE FUTURE 1 have come out. Weirdly, the goonies isn't being discussed much while the same grown-up people were falling over themselves crying discussing E.T. when it came out.

-Disney animation movie the BLACK CAULDRON is getting some chat, but mostly because it doesn't follow the source material 100% which is an omnipresent hang-up for certain SFF fans (this has happened many times, usually over Arthurian mythos, and it will happen again).

-An Arthurian series focusing on Gawain using the Welsh spelling of his name comes out, and people mistake the Welsh spelling as being a new self-insert character into the Arthurian Mythos and got very angry.

-Slams on SPACE 1999. The actors in it, the acting in Space 1999, the feasibility of Lunar colonies, the introduction of the shape-shifting character in season 2, the time loop?

-Roger Zelazny's continuation of the Amber series book comes out, and 1985 SFL reaction is thirsty for more/damn you Zelazny write faster. This resulted in heavy topical to 1985 Roger Zelazny chat, which can be boring to discuss and recap.

-Philip Jose Farmer: Even back in 1985, people were getting tired of PJF's role as self-appointed chronicler/perpetuator of a number of "mythologies" where PJF would write the imaginary books other authors referenced in their stories, like for example HP Lovecraft's Cryptonomicon and/or write completely unauthorized sequels/prequels to other authors books. 

(2020 sidenote: In modern terms, this would be like PJF writing "Mithra the Sixth" in Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth setting, or the Secret Annals of Baru Cormorant, or vulturing into N. K. Jemisin's work, etc.)

originally posted August 23rd - August 27th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 08 readthrough update 02

 -Reading the SFL archives chat about SUNDIVER and STARTIDE RISING has softened my views on David Brin. The David Brin of 37 yrs/30 yrs/20 years ago is not the bitter boomer CHUD David Brin of 2019, clever and tolerant David Brin died off over a decade ago.

David Brin's Uplift universe stories are worth reading for the galactic species and Interstellar Universal Library concept in them. For a 2020 reader new to David Brin's Uplift stories, yes there is awkward interspecies sex scenes in each of the Uplift books that can/probably should be skipped over.. ....always skip the awkward interspecies sex scenes/sexual harassment scenes in Brin's Uplift universe stories. What's that?...... *high pitched clicking and squeaking*....... DolphinF**ker heavily disagrees with that last statement.

-first book of Roger Zelazny's new AMBER series gets teased for a 1984 release. Looking back at Zelazny's earlier Amber stories,and the wholesale stealing from Philip Jose Farmer's earlier series, am now thinking that the obvious "written for the money" Amber books mostly exist, ironically, as a way for Zelazny to pay off PJF and confuse people into thinking PJF ripped off Zelazny...which then leads to owing PJF another round of settlement money, etc

-Spider Robinson (mega-overrated) gets mentioned for the 872th time as a person of note in the SFF community that every serious SFF fan should be aware of. tldr summary of Spider Robinson: Robert Heinlein was Spider Robinson's God, and Spider Robinson fully embraced the Moses role.

-The mailing list moderator(BackStabMod) who did a hostile takeover of the SF-LOVERS Digest lasted a little over 15 months managing the SFL mailing list before giving up, claiming privacy right concerns (a la DolphinF**ker) with the ARPANET and the inability to manage future SF-LOVERS mailing list Digests if they have no future ARPANET access are the real reasons why they are stepping down as SF-LOVERS mod. BackStabMod's explanations about privacy concerns were unironically accompanied by lots and lots of personal details of BackStabMod's life and future plans.

-Rudy Rucker, 1980s mathematician and scifi author got discussed. Some of the people like RR's work simply because they incorporate mathematics into their stories, others dislike RR for the shoehorned-in mathematics and the kookiness factor in RR's stories. Regardlessly, I had never heard of THE SEX SPHERE By Rudy Rucker before, and really don't plan on reading it.

-Movie chat continued, with WARGAMES 1983 & the upcoming DUNE movie directed by David Lynch being frequent topics of discussion. Nightmares(?) the anthology horror film had a gamer-hell segment that seemed very VR goggles. A weird arthouse movie call LIQUID SKY got mentioned for it's scifi elements and unique take on exploitation/horror/scifi/drugs.

-For the 5th time or so in SFL archives history, someone asked for lists "SF&F Novels of Literary Merit", and then got pissy at the lack of responses/not enough people doing their homework slash PhD thesis research for them. Basic things like the request being a loaded question, the requestor obviously fishing for data for their PhD thesis on Science Fiction Novels of Literary Merit, and the responder requesting all survey answers being sent to a obscure location confused and angered people similar to Arthur Dent and the house demolition notice (It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'). Additionally defending the merit of SFF is a hill SFF Culture Warrior John S Quarterman is willing to die on (John Quarterman requested people get his name right when referring to him so I did).

-Somebodies worse SF novel they can ever recall reading is ARMADA by Michael Jahn, which I have done zero research on,and will probably forget about until the next time I go through my SFL archive Vol 08 bookmarks

-Probably only of interest to me and a select few others, but TRAVELLER RPG gets mentioned a few times and this allows me to mention without any hate in my soul additional filksong lyrics chat along with the 300+ odes or verses to a filk-song about "olde time religion" or something similar. I refuse to bookmark filk-chat so you'll have to dig through SFL Vol 08 yourself to find them

-Private space sector efforts vs government funded space sector SFL archives chat in 1983 aged badly given the 2019/2020 private space sector events

-SF vs Sci-fi vs skiffy. AKA a fans of Science Fiction culture war that boils down to (in 2020 terms) how you refer to Science-Fiction in short-hand terms(SF vs Sci-fi vs skiffy) defining your TRUE FAN STATUS versus other people/other Science Fiction fans.

-Big time DOCTOR WHO chat. Peter Davidson leaving the role so soon after Tom Baker, and American Public access tv repeating the Doctor Who serials more than Star Trek the Original Series got repeated has driven up the SFL Dr Who Chat intensity.

 To give some context, the Five Doctors special just came out, which skewed slightly into Douglas Adams chat when Douglas Adam's as a Dr Who writer came up. John Nathan-Turner has been mentioned multiple times promising many things to Doctor Who fans, of which zero point zero zero zero zero three promises will actually happen (the first person of color companion promise took an additional 34 f**king years to happen)

-EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE, a D&D setting TSR abandoned in lieu of GREYHAWK, then FORGOTTEN REALMS, then MYSTARA, then FORGOTTEN REALMS (again) gets mentioned. Empire of the Petal Throne uses a hybrid China/Japan/Korea/India gameworld setting.

-On the topic of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, SFL chat was about how the books deviated from the original HHGTTG radio broadcasts and the followup BBC HHGTTG radio sequel programs. Finally Douglas Adams running out of tombstones to swear on while promising each HHGTTG sequel will be the "last one I swear" was the new SFL archives running joke (replacing the previous SFL running jokes of PAC-man puns and before that Indiana Jones sequel pun-names)

-Something called the unofficial Wizards and Warriors unathorized future history continuation has been hyped multiple times by one SFL poster. Suspecting that SFL postergot told to knock it off/stop hosting this on the ARPANET, because the last Wizards & Warriors hype pitch in SFL Vol 08 combines a "lost subscriber/please help me find them" with an acknowledgement of getting kicked off their former ARPANET/CSNet host

-Convention security run by SFF fans gets mentioned, with Robert Asprin of Myth/Thieves World/IRS back-taxes fame getting mentioned as the leader of the DORSAI IRREGULARS aka the Klingon Diplomatic Corps. Am pretty certain doing any kind of research into this group will involve cringe factors and discovering covered-up sexual assault

-MIT's Science Fiction Society slash private library gets mention-pimped in detail for the first time since 1980-1981. No idea if this exists currently or MIT cracked down on it. As I've said repeatedly before, I bookmark things of interest and very rarely look things up because there is so much stuff in the SFL Digest that if I took the time to look up everything mentioned, I would be much further behind in my SFL archive read-through.

-A post about "Death Star population = Imperial Cas" successfully predicts one of the events in "The Last Jedi" aka the hyperdrive suicide bombing.

originally posted July 31st in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 05 readthrough

SFL Vol 05 was a extremely quick read in comparison to the first SFL 4 volumes. Almost every third SFL Digest update started with apologies to the SFL subscribers for extended downtime/missed SFL Digest updates caused by hardware failure.

-Everyone has opinions on the Dean Machine Drive/Analog magazine fiasco, which I am currently 3% clued in about (and climbing) just from reading the ongoing not-Mad posts from BigName people on the subject. 

(2020 sidenote: Back in the 19th century, someone claimed to have detected people living on the moon, attributing the discovery of Moon lifeforms to world famous astronomer John Herschel. 19th century hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax

The Dean Machine Drive is a similar thing, a fake news event to drive up sales when readers want to know more/debunk the published story. (an Analog Magazine article about a weight reducing prototype spacedrive). Only it was the godfather of pulp scifi, John W Campbell, in full "I WANT TO BELIEVE" mode backing up the Dean Machine Drive bullshit claim. )

-Robert Heinlein's FRIDAY came out, and gets very mixed SFL reviews, even from the Heinlein Defense squad. One particularly virulent Heinlein Squad poster drops the mask completely and blames "incorrect usages of grammar" inside FRIDAY as the *WINK* real reason *WINK* why they hate Heinlein's FRIDAY.....as in "how dare this female main character dare to use feminine pronouns when describing things in book."

-More STAR TREK 2 movie chat, with press tours about Spock dying yes/no driving talk about still a pipe-dream Star Trek 3.

-Someone complains about getting sent 12 duplicate issues of the latest SFL digest, and the impact of having to store 12 copies of the SFL Digest email on their system, even for one day. Remember, the overall computer resources and network bandwidth of 1982 were a rounding error of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the computing power and bandwidth available to the year 2020.

-EMPIRE STRIKES BACK gets scheduled for a 1982 wintertime re-release in theaters, while A NEW HOPE gets teased as being re-released to the theaters for the 3rd or 4th time since it originally came out in 1977

-I originally thought that "FOONLEY" computer system chat was some kind of delayed April 1st 1982 SFL joke, but no. Judging from the series of not-Mad rebuttal comments, I theorized that the Foonley computer architecture was the precursor of what became the RISC/SPARC computer architecture.....however I was doubly wrong. Foonley architecture evolved into MIPS, an also-ran competitor project to RISC. 

-STAR TREK 2, E.T. , and POLTERGEIST came out. Many reviews of Star Trek 2 & E.T. have been posted, Star Trek 2 questions, etc.

-A few U.S. based people complain about commercials suddenly being shown in theaters before the actual movie They-Paid-2-see starts. One or two people from Europe reply saying that has been common practice for a while in Europe.

-One of the original SFLers from it's 1979 mailing list inception started up a San Francisco Bay area precursor to Nick at Nite. 

-Positive feedback on Spielberg's E.T. came in hard as SFL Vol 05 came to an end

-One thing I failed to mention in the SFL archives was that ever since the movie adaption of Philip K Dick's "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?" aka "Bladerunner 1982" got announced, there has been massive confusion because the title "Bladerunner" comes from a completely different story/author, aka THE BLADERUNNER, a 1974 novel by Alan Nourse. So half the people discussing Bladerunner have been talking about Alan Nourse's story and getting confused when PKD's Electric Sheep gets discussed and vice versa with PKD's Electric Sheep discussion and Alan Nourse.

(2020 sidenote: Alan Nourse was a actual medical doctor slash scifi writer whose stories tended to involve medical themes. No lies, the plot and storyline of The Bladerunner 1974 seems eerily prescient of what is going on in 2020 right now/what seems to be the future of health care, and I am going to track down a copy of it asap.)

originally posted between July 12th -July 15th 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