SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 05

 43% completion, 140 bookmarks

-Tolkien LORD OF THE RINGS chat intensifies and redoubles. Many theories and misunderstandings about the One Ring occur (was there actually 21 rings of power, not 20 rings?(based on how you parsed out the One Ring To Rule Them All inscription). Did the One Ring corrupt Good-guy Sauron? Did the elf's continuously round-robin their 3 rings to keep Sauron's influence away?). Power rankings for Valar and Maiar, and who fit where in those rankings. Finally, one SFLer tries the Sherlock Holmes Watsonian tactic of claiming J.R.R. Tolkien merely translated the Hobbit and the LotR saga, and wonders who really wrote those stories. 

(2020 note: Pretty much the only thing that hasn't come yet is SFLer's saying that, actually the Balrog's wielded lightsabers(this is my contribution to Tolkienian lore if no one else has come up with it)).

-First mention of Anne Rice and THE VAMPIRE LESTAT in the SFL Archives.

-The Navy Times leaks a story and pictures of STAR TREK 4 filming taking place on the U.S.S. Ranger (CV-61 aircraft carrier).

-Someone tries to critique and tear down how the fog of war & situational awareness affected real life battles like Waterloo 1815, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and General Sherman's 1864 March to the Sea. Only by the 3rd paragraph it's clear that Avalon Hill wargaming rulesets and ONLY Avalon Hill wargaming rulesets are being used for the critiques of these IRL battles.  It is hilarious to read, especially when other SFLers respond back.

-Paranoia RPG module YELLOW CLEARANCE BLACK BOX BLUES gets men...#672785  REDACTED BY ORDER OF FRIEND COMPUTER. HAIL FRIEND COMPUTER. 

-The 1986 Seattle International Film Festival had a seminar on how film trailers were cut, and it sounds extremely interesting. Added this to my "track down and read" list.

-BURNING CHROME, the optioned-and-in-the-works film adaption of William Gibson's NEUROMANCER gets mentioned and discussed and mentioned more because Burning Chrome is also the title of a William Gibson cyberpunk short story collection.

-the TUCKER AWARD, an award for SF convention goers gets mentioned. Not sure if the TUCKER AWARD is a grifter scam, partially real, or a one-off SF award that quickly died off due to lack of interest. (2020 note: Not going to waste the time internet-searching it since no-one has responded about it.)

-A few SFL Star Trek fans ask "Why don't any of the official STAR TREK episodes have female captains, it is sexism or worse?" (2020 take: Yes and Yes. Gene Roddenberry applies heavily to both Yes answers.)

-Someone transcribes an entire edition of CHEAP TRUTH, an Austin TX science-fiction newsletter, to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. The edition of CHEAP TRUTH transcribed is decently long, very political, and full of sick burns on many 1986 big-Name SF authors. 

-Some 1986 SFLers start hating on Spider Robinson's stories always including rape, underage jailbait, sexual assault, 30 second pep-talk speeches curing lifelong depressions, and having tragedy being SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT....2020 me rejoices.

-Andrew M. Greeley's story THE GOD GAME gets mentioned....and guess we now know where Peter Molyneux got the idea for POPULOUS 1 from.

-A SFLer quotes a recent 1986 issue of Scientific American, which discusses the lack of cheetah genetic variance. (2020 note: I listed this just to reference the state of DNA sequencing and precursor warnings of the 6th extinction event, circa 1986. 6th extinction event clarification can be found here  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction )

-Cyberspace and how 1986 SFLers think it will be implemented in the future, using or not using William Gibson's vision of Cyberspace as a non-computer person.

-"How would you repopulate the Earth if 99% of the opposing gender died off?" discussion, Some people participating in this discussion aim high, some go detail oriented wondering about the diet plans & scheduling details needed to rebalance the gender ratio, and others almost but don't quite go into race science mode. 

-MAX HEADROOM comes up again, regarding Max Headroom (Matt Frewer) appearing in Coke commercials before the Max Headroom Cinemax tv series officially starts up.

-First mention of PROJECT ORION in the SFL Archives. Projection Orion was essentially a plan to launch spaceships by detonating nuclear bombs beneath them and using a hyper-massive shock-absorber system to absorb the blasts and "bounce" the spaceships forward.

-NASA waits around five months before starting a grass-roots PR campaign to keep funding manned space exploration projects in response to the details coming out about how NASA f**ked up big-time everyway regarding the Challenger Launch decision.

-Stanislaw Lem's work starts getting discussed, with people being amazed by how good (usually) the translations of Lem's stories into other languages go, usually.

-The movies ALIENS, LABYRINTH, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA all come out within 2 weeks of each other. So far, Labyrinth has the most feedback, with "this children's film was geared towards children and not adults, I don't like it" being the most vocal feedback so far.

-Nanotechnology will change everything. One of the first mentions of Nanotechnology by that name in the SFL Archives.

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 01

-The Kindle I use to read the SFL Archives decided to suicide itself during yet another blowjob hagiography review of Spider Robinson at the 2% mark in SFL Vol 10, and I didn't blame it.

(sidenote 2020:  In my free time waiting for a replacement Kindle device, gave Spider Robinson's work a re-read after dissing him hard last in my previous SFL Archives read-through posts, because maybe I'd been too harsh towards Spider Robinson previously?)

 -Lots of David Eddings BELEGARIAD discussion, lots of Piers Anthony story discussion, and lots of Spider Robinson story discussion

2020 joke: <Jeopardy buzzer: Alex, what is "Authors whose work aged beyond hyper-badly for $800?" 

Alex Trebek: "CORRECT." >

2020 Joke Explainer: Giving Spider Robinson's work a re-read was a big mistake. Repeated instances of outright sexual assault, jailbait, underaged date rape, non-consentual bdsm, date rape, rape, etc in all of Spider Robinson's short stories & novels.

-Frank Herbert's Dune series continues to be discussed, not so much the DUNE 1984 movie. Much SFL internal amusement comes from reposting an old interview excerpt where Frank Herbert says: "I'm still against the idea of sequels in principle, because it's like watering down your wine all the time until you're left with just water." This is extremely funny given how many Dune sequels/prequels have come out since 1999.

-Piers Anthony had only released 8 XANTH books up to this point in 1985...<shakes head in 2020>...and most of the 1985 SFL readers demand more Piers Anthony stories. More discerning SFL posters noticed that each new Xanth book has upped the perv-factor with female characters in them getting dumber, and younger. 

-someone posts about the 1985 convention BOSKONE 22 being terrible on multiple levels (massively overcharging one-day pass people, overcrowded, terrible panels, worse film schedule, actively hostile venue, etc) with other SFL posters chiming in agreeing. One of the Boskone 22 organizers posts a big-ass "how fucking dare you" crocodile tears effort post that fails to address any of the complaints many SFL people posted about re: Boskone 22.

-Robert Forward's ROCHEWORLD gets held up as a model of good hard science fiction writing, which uh as a first time reader of Rocheworld and it's sequel 2 weeks ago in 2020, I can firmly say; HELL NO. Rocheworld was not good or hard science fiction beyond the light-sail setup.

-book publisher f**kery pt 47: Diane Duane's (who I had never heard of before or totally forgotten about (I really didn't read YA fiction growing up)) book 2 of a existing series comes out, which leads into a digression about book publishers (Dell) cancelling entire print runs, Ballantine Books dying, books being stuff in publishing limbo, Bluejay Press taking up the copyrights, and Bluejay Press as usual utterly f**king up the release dates of books.

-BLUEJAY PRESS is or rather was the anti-matter version of BAEN BOOKS. Bluejay Press  seemed to have good talent scouts and signed lots of amazing in retrospect fantasy & SciFi authors but could never release a book on time, usually missing their own publishing dates by 4 months or more. Meanwhile, Baen Books was the complete opposite in every way.

-pt 57 of me realizing how f**king old/how long certain authors have been around for. Example: George RR Martin & Stephen Donaldson were mentioned as promising up-coming talented authors when the SF-LOVERS mailing list started up in late 1979....this time circa 1984 it's Mary Gentle and Somtow Sucharitkul.

-Theodore Sturgeon death notice (RIP)

-20th century fox (rip, lol disney buyout) tries to get a rocky horror picture show subculture going for it's 1984 movie BUCKAROO BANZAI repeated times in the SFL mailing list.

-1985 marks the first time that April 1st jokes/pranks become the THING to post on April 1st.

-The doxxing of Richard Bachman being Stephen King is completed, and some SFLer's make some extremely notMad posts about it.

-Steven Brust starts posting prolifically in the SFL mailing list about many many things.
Direct quote: "If you really want mainstream quality writing in fantasy, I recommend the Gor books of John Norman." Steven Brust, SFL Archives Volume 10

(sidenote 2020: Have and will continue to re-quote 'Steven Brust recommending GOR' anywhere Steven Brust gets discussed online. The Steven Brust recommending GOR quote also lead to to my working hypothesis of:

If Heinlein inspired a never ending series of libertarian writers, well then John Norman's GOR books inspired and showed that skeevy sex sells in fantasy and scifi. 

originally posted August 11th - August 23th 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