SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 01

Current status: 10% completion, 21 bookmarks on SFL Archives Volume 11 readthrough 

This is going to be a shorter than normal update, but it's all fresh material. SFL Volume 11 is about half a Megabyte shorter than SFL Volume 10, and lots of interesting and terrible movies are coming out circa 1986. LABYRINTH! SPACE CAMP! COBRA! ALIENS 2! STAR TREK 4! BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA! etc, etc.

Actual SFL Volume 11 weird, bizarre, horrifying and retroactively interesting things:  

-Should books be marked scarlet letter style regarding the sexual slants in them? (gay/lesbian/cis/pedophile/dolphin/centaurs/etc)...

-Sexual slant chat lead to SFLers commenting on Anne McCaffrey's DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN books, with how most of the dragon-riders seem to be forced into being bisexual by mental-links with their dragons. Lots and lots of Pern chat, with "impress" being mentioned a whole lot. Having never read any of the Pern books, guessing "impress" is a Pern universe stand-in word for non-consent.

-The 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster happens. Thankfully, none of the usual SFL edgelords do their expected edgelord takes. Instead the SFL reaction to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is universal horror and condolences for everyone directly affected by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster....and within hours, one SFLer has Zapruder Film analyzed the Space shuttle launch tapes and detected flames shooting out of one the solid-fuel boosters. 

The reason why the Challenger disaster got me so mad on the SA forums/gets me so mad IRL is that the Challenger did not have to launch then; there was a massive political push to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger ASAP. 

Why? So that the TEACHER IN SPACE project's scheduled broadcast of 2 15-minute science lessons from the Space Shuttle in orbit to all the children in the USA would happen on schedule and bring the USA/NASA/President Reagan much prestige.  Instead, rules got ignored and bypassed, and tragedy happened. 

Although it's kind of old, Diane Vaughan's THE CHALLENGER LAUNCH DECISION is my preferred recommendation to other people because the book goes into great detail about the many factors to the Challenger Space Shuttle launching when it did, AND Diane Vaughan flat-out admitted in the introduction that she had a canned conclusion ready, but all the evidence and interviews she did as research made her change her mind.

 -Frank Herbert, original DUNE series author death notice.  

-Peri (Nicola Bryant), a original DOCTOR WHO TV series Companion triggered a few proto-incel SFLers hard and the triggered proto-incels get rock-hard/cheer when Nicola Bryant is dropped from the Doctor Who series.

-The DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN weirdness discussion IMPRESSES more SFLers into posting about Dragonriders of Pern series weirdness in a vicious feedback loop.

-The crime Roj Blake gets framed for in iconic SciFi tv-series BLAKES 7 gets mentioned and it is extremely terrible in a "why did you pick that crime, BBC/Blake's 7 showrunner for the main character?"

-Someone tries to get the SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator-maintainer nominated for a 1986/1987 HUGO AWARD, category: Best Professional Editor; since the SF-LOVERS mailing list goes out to over 1200 people. The SF-LOVERS mailing list moderator-maintainer then explains, in small words suitable for children, why that would be a BAD IDEA. something something federal investigation something stealing government resources something something Hugo Awards get more press than discussion groups at Boskone conventions.

SFL Archives Vol 03 readthrough update 03

-Dell killed off their entire scifi publishing line, including the prestige labels. 

2020 sidenote: Thought this was a result of end-of-year price bumps not getting the sales targets Dell was aiming for. Looking slightly behind the scenes circa year 2020 vision (ha), it seems that the Dell Publishing buyout by DOUBLEDAY had entered "asset stripping mode", maybe to help Doubleday payoff debt from another recent Doubleday acquisition, the NEW YORK METS baseball team.

-EXCALIBUR (1981) the movie came out, and the SFL archive has been full of "I am not angry, I am super-angry that the movie did not adhere 100% to The Whole Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table", or "Hey Arthurian myth has lots of forms and versions, why you so mad?" and "Read more <arthurian myth> dumbasses, the movie adapted multiple arthurian sources", etc.

-Despite live-posting the first attempted manned launch of the Space Shuttle program, absolutely no one seemed to give a f**k when Columbia launched successfully two days later, and landed successfully 2 days after that. Instead it was "What ever happened to the Space Shuttle named Enterprise?" /"It's the prototype test Shuttle, it might get turned into a real boy real Space Shuttle if Congress funds it" Spoilers unneeded, Congress did not fund it. 

-I apparently spoke too soon about people not giving a f**k about the first manned Space Shuttle landing. At least 3 SFL subscribers ran into each other at the 1st manned Space Shuttle landing exhibition and recognized each other from overhearing references to a recent SFL verbal meme. This email took a week plus after being sent to finally appear in the SFL mailing list.

-the MENSA ad opened the gateway, and barely disguised product review advertisements have started to creep into the SFL mailing list.

-Newcomers to the SFL mailing list being confused by cryptic messages and unknown acronym usages, and ironically confusing people by their use of unknown acronyms.

-Massive amount of requests for "DOWN IN FLAMES", which circa 1981, had only seen print in a discontinued fanzine (Trumpet #10)

-A "Deaf people are scifi fans too. How about some scifi stories rec's/radio transcript adaptions for deaf people?" request got some very ugly feedback before SFL posters just started to list fiction with deaf aliens/aliens that have no concept of sound. Not a great moment for the SFL archives to be honest.

-Harlan Ellison demonstrates his skillz by writing a short story in the "show window of the B. Dalton Bookstore on Fifth Avenue" live from a image suggested by a person onsite.

-Twenty days worth of scifi themed juvenile fiction chat in the SFL archives means I'm finally dropping juvenile series names that SFL archive posters grew up reading. DANNY DUNN, SPACE CAT, MUSHROOM PLANET, etc. Eleanor Cameron was very highly regarded by SFL posters. Most of the juvenile series would be cartoons today, with the Danny Dunn series being a very very close match to Disney's Phineas and Ferb.

-sexbots, gynoids, heinlein stories, words with *-trix endings (all these are connected)

-Gene Wolfe's BOOK OF THE NEW SUN books start getting discussed.

-Lancelot the goat-unicorn got mentioned a few more times, and so did it's owners/creators. Morning Glory was big into the Aleister Crowley/Donald Trump school of belief that "press mentions are life, bad publicity is better than no publicity at all", and apparently showed up to one fantasy-scifi convention wearing only white body-paint saying that she was a giant bottle of correction fluid.

-you don't talk about Fight Club in public SF-LOVERS, HUMAN-NETS, or any of the Large Mailing Lists directly in any form whatsoever.

[ Everyone planning to meet at NCC '81 should please take care not

to mention SF-LOVERS, HUMAN-NETS, or any of the Large Mailing Lists

directly in any form whatsoever. To do so would violate the

security of these lists, threatening their existence. Rather, it

has proved effective at past conventions to simply post notices

directing people to REDACTED@REDACTED, REDACTED@REDACTED, or REDACTED group.

Please take care to be cryptic so that people who do not know about

the Large Lists will remain ignorant. - REDACTED ] 

it was full-bore '50's/60's/70's juvenile print and multimedia entertainment nostalgia chat until RotLA came out, and even then it took CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981), SUPERMAN 2(1981) and DRAGONSLAYER (1981) to derail juvenile entertainment nostalgia chat. Finally RODOF, the twice doxxed son of Dr Robert Forward, came forward (terrible pun but I'm keeping it) to end Vol 03 on a creepy note [Subject: Hymen Hijinx].

-RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK chat was mainly angrily posting unfavorable reviews of RotLA, arguing whether Belloq ate a fly during the Bazooka-Indy standoff, seeing C3P0 & R2D2 in wall inscriptions of the buried city of Tanis, everyone saying that Indy shooting the swordsman got the highest audience reaction, and then trying to break down why in SMG/BotL style, followed by infinite seeming waves of punny RotLA sequel concept titles.

-Clash of Titans chat included 2 profiles of Ray Harryhausen, wooden acting, not sticking to Greek myths as understood/remembered, slams about Harryhausen's work, body doubles...all in all; the people who were the most vocal about Excalibur 1981 (mentioned in earlier Vol 03 recaps) were also the most vocal posters about Clash of Titans.

-Nothing big on Superman 2 chat other than long-exposed to public awareness behind-the-scenes drama involving Donner and Superman 1/2. Dragonslayer 1981 mostly got mentioned for the early CGI/first generation digital optical efforts in it, then...

-RODOF made a series of posts about [Subject: Hymen Hijinx]...........in Dragonslayer (1981). Everywhere you think those RODOF posts probably went re: [Subject: Hymen Hijinx], Yup, you are correct. Bonus correctness points go to people whom also predicted "I wasn't being serious in my earlier posts, I was only joking BUT....".

originally posted between July 3rd - July 6th 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