SFL Archives Vol 15b readthrough 01

 SFL Archives Vol 15b

3.4 mb raw text file

100% completion, 86 bookmarks

-SFL Vol 15b Book mentions: PHULES COMPANY, ZORK CHRONICLES, SEA OF GLASS, THE FACE OF MINE ENEMY, GAMEPLAYERS OF ZAN, WIZARD OF THE PIGEONS, RED STORM RISING, THE LEAKY ESTABLISHMENT, THE LAST WHALES, SPACE BY THE TALE, DHALGREN, TWO PLANETS, MOON PROSPECTOR, THE PUBLIC HATING, THE IRON STAR, DEATHGATE (book  series), BORDERTOWN & BORDERLAND, ISHMAEL, CYTEEN, PARTICOLORED UNICORN, PHOENIX, VAMPIRE$, JURASSIC PARK.

-Pop Culture mentions; the soap opera GUIDING LIGHT,  whatever "ERBitis" is, non-American SFLer's ask "Who is Mr. T?", Multi-User Domains (MUDs), Saddam Hussein, the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey, the EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE rpg, "California-In-Space" syndrome, the re-release of a semi-restored version of METROPOLIS 1927, BARDS TALE 1, the Chewbacca Star Wars Holiday Special, I DAMIANO the cRPG, 

SFL movie & TV series mentions: CHERRY 2000, GHOST 1990, ARANCHNAPHOBIA 1990, WICKER MAN 1973, QUEEN OF BLOOD, FLATLINERS, DARKMAN 1990, Japanese anime LENSMAN, THE FLASH 1990 tv series, the 1980's COSBY show, the SIMPSONS, MONSTERS tv series, PREDATOR 2, METROPOLIS 1927, Chewbacca Star Wars Holiday Special, IT 1990 tv-movie, DARK STAR,  ROBOT JOX, MISERY, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

-SFLer's continue to discuss the terrible and toxic behavior of fans and authors at SF&F conventions. Examples given of terrible, or inciting conduct on both sides. Jerry Pournelle gets revealed as one of the "screaming at fans/constantly drunk" bad conduct SF&F authors at SF&F conventions. 

-Discussion of EE Smith's life and SF writing career during the gold age - post World War 2 pulp SF era, while other SFLers try to explain away the creepier elements in Jack Chalker's stories, and other SFLers start seeing 10 layers of allusion and meta-commentary in Samuel R Delany's DHALGREN.

-More Raymond E Feist series chat, more Steven Brust series chat, more Bujold story chat, more Mercedes Lackey story chat, more Stanislaw Lem story chat, lots of CYTEEN theory-crafting, more gilding of John W Campbell's editorship skills driving SF to it's higher points. 

-The BOSKONE convention in Springfield MA gets downsized again for the 3rd straight year while the totally new convention ARISIA run by the same group doing BOSKONE gets 15 miles closer to the holy land aka Boston MA on year 2.

-SFLers mention the time when Scientologists alleged did a mass harassment campaign vs L Sprague DeCamp after DeCamp debunked some Scientology related concepts and beliefs.

-Paperback book pricing in 1990: $5.95

-TSR pulling a 2020 Disney tactic and deciding to not pay out royalties for any of the DRAGONLANCE sequels written by Margaret Weis & Tracey Hickman, which explains why those two suddenly started producing new not-Dragonlance/not-Star Wars fiction. SFLer's also mention Fizban, uh NABZIF? appearing in the DEATHGATE series books.

-The BBC refuses to schedule DOCTOR WHO for a 27th season in 1990, effectively putting the tv series into a timeless limbo forever.

(2020 note: Yes, I know the 1996 Paul McGann DOCTOR WHO movie happened, and that DOCTOR WHO  eventually got rebooted in 2005, however that was 6 & 15 yrs in the future, respectively.)

-Barbara Hambly grafting the DOCTOR WHO universe onto her STAR TREK novel ISHMAEL, Stephen Donaldson is quoted as mentioned that he is working on a new science-fiction trilogy called the GAP CYCLE, and a essay-introduction by  Kevin J Anderson on writing the GAMEARTH Trilogy gets reposted in full to the SF-LOVERS mailing list.

-1st casting news for THE TERMINATOR 2 comes out, along with rumors of office buildings already being leased out for movie location shooting. 

-"What defines a Cyborg?" chat kicked off by Terminator 2's announcement, which leads to STAR WARS chat, and other fiction that has humanoid robots/body part replacement, body part enhancements like eyeglasses.

-The emergence of more HP Lovecraft scholars, and modern 1980s-1990s fiction embracing the CTHULHU MYTHOS wholesale

-Jean Airey(?) allegedly being ripped off by a book publishing company and issuing a open letter about sending fans a photocopy of the work if they send her a self-address envelope with the correct postage on it.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION discussion. SFLer's were excited with Shelby and had hopes of Shelby taking the 1st officer permanently w/ Riker as the new Captain of the Enterprise 1701-C. StarFleet ships not having bombs slash nuclear missiles. The UK gets the 1st season of ST:TNG as the 4th season of ST:TNG airs in the US, and the UK SFLer reactions to season 1 are interesting reads. Certain episodes of ST:TNG being banned in the UK, like the episode with a throwaway line about Irish reunification.

-The RPG EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE having a extremely hardcore magic system that involved gouging out eyes, bathing in mothers blood, sacrificing dozens of virgins.

-A weird aside about the portraits in the recent Illustrated Guide to AMBER being the IRL people who Roger Zelazny based a bunch of AMBER series characters on....and those IRL people forming a AMBER SOCIETY SCA group and becoming next-level stalker invested in their AMBER counterparts to the point of physically shunning someone who Zelazny killed off in the AMBER stories.

(2020 note: I hope this is just next-level bullshit gossip, but I suspect not.) 

-PREDATOR 2 pre-release and post-release discussion covers lots of ground, including the Aliens vs Predator teaser, Predator hunting rules, who owned that old pistol, why the US Feds were dumb, etc.

-Requests for Vampire Fiction(alien/fantasy/Sime:Gen/future/Anne Rice/etc), Requests for Avianoid fiction, Requests for science-fiction Cosmic String stories, requests for fiction with Stasis Field elements in them, etc.

-Philip K Dick discussion in 4 parts: SFLers claim PKD threw away a financial windfall to write something else, financial windfall rumor gets hard numbers, financial windfall rumor discredited, and Vonda McIntyre closes out the entire discussion by posting a open letter from PKD's final literary agent Russell Galen about PKD's work. 

-Piers Anthony starts their own 800 number, and many of the resident SFL authors are totally cool with that seethe with jealousy.

(2020 note: 800 numbers were a big thing during the 1970s -1990s before social media & texting took away the need to call phone numbers)

-Discussion of ST:TNG spaceship battle tactics in season 3 finale had a weird aside comment about the US Air Forces experiences in Vietnam lead to tactics changes & rebirth of the TOP GUN advanced fighter plane pilot training schools 

-Extended discussion of 2 Fred Saberhagen series (EMPIRE OF THE EAST, BOOKS OF SWORDS) in ways that modern SF&F fandom debate the minutia of the GAME OF THRONES & MALAZAN series. Aka what matchup would win, did X character really die, who is this mysterious masked character, etc.

-1950's pulp SF CITIES IN SPACE series discussion, with SFLer's having fond memories of the technology & the wandering space-Okie gimmick.

-Ever since the Netherlands won the WorldCon 1990 hosting gig, Worldcon 1990 notices about how to register for it/what cool things existed there for 3 yrs.Therefore it was pretty disappointing when only one person(a Worldcon 1990 convention organizer) ended up discussing WorldCon 1990.

-Lloyd Abbey's THE LAST WHALES having "..considerable amounts of  cetacean sex, which should induce a becoming humility in all human readers.."

-ALIEN NATION the tv-series is officially cancelled by FOX, fans of the tv series start a letter writing campaign to get the decision reversed.

(2020 note: The letter writing campaign would be partially successful..two or three ALIEN NATION tv-movies happened due to the letter writing campaign.) 

-EC Tubb's DUMAREST series being brought up, again, as one of the main world-building inspirations for the TRAVELLER RPG.

-SFL reviewer-idiot Mark Leeper completely plagiarizes a newspaper career review of Ray Harryhausen from back when CLASH OF THE TITANS 1981 came out, nobody calls them on their bullshit. Meanwhile Evelyn Leeper was nominated for the 1990 Best Fan Writer Hugo for as recognition for all of her unpaid SF&F media reviewer posts across USENET.

-Return of Tolkienian discussion to the SFL Archives after 2 years of silence. SFLer's debate who delivered the killing blow on the Angmar WitchKing ShadowWraith, what Balrog's canonically look like, the mechanics of elf souls vs mankind souls and where do Tolkien half-elf souls/go when they die?

-The SFWA White Knight Chug Von Rospach was mostly absent from VOL 15B. Vonda McIntyre wiped out alot of his illusionary positionr as a SF&F authority figure when she posted the open letter from PKD's literary agent Russell Galen. However the final insult slash diss to Chuq was probably when someone asked for SF&F fanzine recommendations midway through VOL 15B and no-one, no-one at all mentioned his fanzine, OtherRealms(?).

-SFL VOL 15B closes out with Vonda McIntyre posting the first 3 or 4 pages of her 1990 novel TRANSITION to the SF-LOVERS mailing list. 

SFL Archives Vol 15a readthrough

SFL Archives Vol 15a

4.3 mb raw text file 

100% completion, 93 bookmarks

-SFLer Chris Siebenmann on the main character in Robert Heinlein's THE CAT WHO WALKS THROUGH WALLS:

Actually, I think it did an excellent job of telling you Col.  Campbell's

race in a very underhanded and easily overlooked fashion.  If you look at

the cover again, you'll see that Campbell is VERY dark for a caucasian; one

can see this either as a very deep suntan (what most people will probably

automatically think it is, especially when combined with the white hair) or

an indication of his race (his last name strong implies he's somewhat of a

crossbreed, after all).

-A recap of Iain (M) Banks published books based on a 1989 interview with JOURNAL WIRED. 

(2020 note: That interview is a nice "slice-in-time" find for seeing how Iain Banks viewed his own work back in 1989)

-Glen Cook porno novel THE SWAP ACADEMY (@1970 published under the pen-name Greg Stevens).

-Chuq Von Rospach continues their streak of listing Chuq Von Rospach's fanzine as the sole mailing address all SF-LOVER reader correspondence to sick/ill/dying SF&F authors should go through.

(2020 note: This is one of the many reasons why I find Von Rospach, aka the SFWA White Knight, so grating doing this SFL Archives readthrough)

-Much discussion of the movie TOTAL RECALL 1990, and exactly what was "real" and what was "fake" in it. Since TOTAL RECALL 1990 contained female nudity, Mark Leeper automatically gave it +2 rating despite hating everything in it.

-SFL Archives technology mentions: GEnie, the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), Citadel BBS Network, SSI cRPGs CURSE OF AZURE BONDS, CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN, COMPUTE GAZETTE, Apple HYPERCARD

-TOR Books never actually gets around to doing the corrected reprint runs of Walter Jon Williams 1989 novel ANGEL STATION that they publicly pledged to do in 1989, leaving people/bookstores with a lot of mutilated useless books they can't resell. 

-Weapons Policies at SF&F conventions & bringing real Weapons to SF&F conventions debate, because Loud Radios (at night?) briefly got added to the banned item lists at certain 1989-1990 conventions.

-SFL Archives pop culture 1st mentions: Steve Jackson Games, Steve Jackson Games Illuminati getting seized by the FBI, GURPS, WILD CARDS GURPS, WHO'S THE BOSS, Kirk Cameron, PALLADIUM RPG, STEAMPUNK fiction, ALIENS VS PREDATOR comic series, Dark Horse Comics, Batman series character JASON TODD getting killed off by reader voting, Clive Cussler self-inserting himself into his DIRK PITT novels, the 1986 movie SPACECAMP.

-1990 Death notices: SF&F author Robert Adams, actor David Rappaport, actress Susan Oliver, Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets), SF&F artist Elizabeth Pearce.

-Naomi Mitchison's MEMOIRS OF A SPACEWOMAN which uh involves lots of emotional/erotic hookups with alien life forms. 

-What are the Most Realistically designed Aliens in Science Fiction stories?

-TOR Books stacking the decks for the 1989 Nebula Award novel category and missing all 5 times being the highlight of the "How do you know who to vote for in Best Professional editor category for the Hugo/Nebula Awards?" discussion thread.

(2020 note: 5 of the 6 nominated novels for the 1989 Nebula were published by TOR). 

-A rare case of non-PERN Anne McCaffrey fiction getting discussed, this time it's about McCaffrey's Crystal Singer stories and the cowriting attempts with Elizabeth Moon and other female authors.

(2020 note: This was a good discussion thread about female SF&F authors, and I bookmarked about every third mention while this thread was going)

-A Japanese SFLer poster gets tired of waiting for Samuel R Delany's work to be translated into Japanese, and requests help finding all of Delany's published work.

-SFLer's ask: Did you catch the DOCTOR WHO reference in Diane Duane's 1990 book HIGH WIZARDRY

(2020 note: I now have the mnemonic "Diane Duane, fan service is her game" etched into my memory.)

-Only 281 ballots being received for 1990 Hugo Award voting at ConFiction 1990. 

-The soap opera ONE LIFE TO LIVE having a extended sequence in a underground city called "Eterna" in 1989.

-"How does everyone in netdom define what Cyberpunk is?" discussion leads to Walter Jon Williams being a hack/visionary chat, precursors of cyberpunk fiction, and the very first requests for Steampunk fiction in the SFL Archives.

-AI Characters in Fiction. Some SFLers go deep referencing TALOS as the first AI character, most people stick with the golden age of scifi - through William Gibson style cyberpunk for their references. 

(2020 note: This discussion chain is worth reading for a SF&F historian or people simply interested in AI Characters featured in Fiction.)

-BATMAN 1992 casting decisions talk (Danny Devito? Michael J Fox?), along with some SFLers believing the Joker never died in BATMAN 1989 with a body-double. And finally will Two Face or Robin the boy wonder show up in Batman 1992/who will play them? discussion 

-Michael Moorcock ETERNAL CHAMPION discussion, 1990 edition: This time it's focused on Jerry Cornelius, and his various powers, storylines, weaknesses, incest fixation, etc.

-The creator and the producer of the 1988 movie WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME squabble over money, embezzlement and Intellectual Property theft via the Internet and lawsuits.

-The 1990 movie adaptation of Margaret Atwood's HANDMAIDS TALE finally gets the SFL Archive discussing the book/the movie adaptation.Since there was female nudity in the movie adaptation, Mark Leeper automatically gives the movie a +2 rating.

-HIGHLANDER 2 is pre-production during 1990, and people are confused yet excited by Sean Connery being cast in it. Various guesses are made as to the plot, and one person leaks the real plot of Highlander 2 but is ignored because it is total gibberish and makes no goddamn sense.

(2020 note: The reaction to Highlander 2 in 1991 aka SFL Vol 16a/16b should be interesting/)   

-Someone who claims to work in the marketing department of a book publishing house explains why certain books get reprinted, and certain books never seem to get reprinted.

-The book reprint discussion expands into the costs/mechanics of doing "small" press print runs of only 1000 books using 1989 book production cost numbers. The SFWA White Knight barges in to clarify things and hate on small book publishing houses for driving up the cost of books/price gouging while failing to mention anything about big book publishing houses price-gouging and author lockdowns.

-The Larry Niven techno-fetishist from SFL Vol 01 starts a NANOTECHNOLOGY usenet group/internet mailing list in cooperation with the FORESIGHT INSTITUTE 

-How witch-moss in the Christopher Stasheff WARLOCK series makes no sense beyond the initial book.

-First mention of Games Workshop Press aka THE BLACK LIBRARY, and the first mention of dedicated WARHAMMER novels.

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION discussion. Why certain keystone writers left TNG after the first season, why Picard is unique, why did Crusher return, why TOS is better/worse, lists of TOS & TNG starship classes, YESTERDAYS ENTERPRISE episode discussion, etc.

-SFLer's scoff at the technological feasibility of ebook readers in Ben Bova's CYBERBOOKS

-One SFLer notes Steven Brust's fixation with the number seventeen(17), noting that every book Brust has had published up to 190 has had 17 chapters, the 17 houses in the Vlad series, etc. Also as of 1989, Steven Brust was well-known for randomly walking into bookstores and signing copies of his work on the racks.

-Larry Niven acknowledging in a 1981 essay that the "Belter Civilization" in his KNOWN SPACE series was lifted almost directly from one of Randall Garrett's short stories.

(2020 note: Making the educated guess it was Niven "borrowing" from Randall Garrett's stories A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE & ANCHORITE)

-Someone in the 1990 SFL Archives brought up the gimmick behind the Eric Frank Russell TEST PIECE short story. The gimmick in it involved 2 forbidden words which would result in instant death if spoken. Eric Frank Russell & OTHER WORLDS magazine got hundreds of SF fans (& at least one author) to out themselves as hyper-chuds/racists over a slate of 51 prizes ranging from artwork/lump sums of cash/magazine subscriptions/all expenses paid 1 week vacation retreat. The contest was to most accurately guess the missing three two words in Eric Frank Russell's short story TEST PIECE.

(2020 note: One of the best bits about that Eric Frank Russell/OTHER WORLDS magazine contest is that all this happened back in 1951, so you & I can only guess at the hyper-racist/giga-chud phrases people sent in that OTHER WORLDS magazined refused to publish.)

-SFWA White Knight Chuq Von Rospach continued their trend of being 150% in-the-tank/taking-a-dive for the SFWA & every established SF&F author whenever negative statements about anything comes up, especially SF&F author-editors in existence.....except for Kurt Vonnegut & Piers Anthony.

(2020 note: Kurt Vonnegut refuses to be a SFWA member which Chuq sees as a heresy equaling excommunication, and as for Piers Anthony, well Piers Anthony openly said that Chuq fucking sucks in personal correspondence between the two.)

-The return of juvenile fantasy & science fiction story discussion: only this time it's what SF&F stories would you read to a 4yr old - 9yr to get them interested in the SF&F genres.

(2020 note: Worth checking out for parents who want to share their love of SF&F with their children. Raid the back catalogs of Scholastic Press for hidden juvenile SF&F gems.)

-Orson Scott Card's work continues to be discussed in detail, and a year 2020 reader can visibly see how OSC is retreating back into Mormon fundamentalism with every new story/project OSC works on.

(2020 note: A few 1989/1990 SFLer's claim that Orson Scott Card got threatened with excommunication from the Church of Latter Day Saints after his touring Secular Humanism debate panels, and that is why Mormonism is becoming more and more overt in OSC's work since that excommunication threat.) 

-1990 SFLers start discussing the KNOWN SPACE setting and bring up a interesting point: Why did the Human Protectors never take out the Pierson Puppeteers who were known to fuck around with Earth/Humanity in general. Was the Man-Kzin war incited to wipe out any survivors of the Human Protectors vs the 2nd/3rd/4th/5th waves of the Pak Protector "rescue" fleets?

-Simon Hawke and their TIME WARS series discussion. Simon Hawke is a pen-name, and the author self-doxxed themselves to stop someone else impersonating them at SF&F conventions. Simon Hawke also gets mentions as one of the "authors with bad conduct at conventions" people when Harlan Ellison's XENOGENESIS essay gets discussed/torn apart/defended in June 1989.

-Eric S. Raymond randomly decides to start posting reviews of everything SF&F he runs across to the SFL Archives ala the Leeper clan. Shockingly, from day 1 ESR's reviews are light-years more coherent, detailed and less biased than the Leeper clans reviews of everything S&F they have run across, despite having 6 more years of experience. 

(2020 note: Not saying that ESR's reviews were great, there is a heavy bias in the reviews ESR posts, while the Leepers tend to go with first impression/clickbait style reviews...and have repeated the same review under "different bylines a few times now. Also, if there is female nudity in a movie, Mark Leeper automatically gives the movie a +2 rating, no matter what.) 

-More periodic repeats of people stumbling across the credits thanking Harlan Ellison in THE TERMINATOR 1984, or half-remembering the details of a Outer Limits episode/short story Ellison wrote about a time traveller with amnesia needing to kill robots stalking them to fill out a glass hand.

(2020 note: That last sentence makes sense if you watched the right Outer Limits tv series episode, or read the Harlan Ellison short story adapted into that Outer Limits episode.) 

-Periodic Mike aka Michael Resnick discussion. SANTIAGO, BIRTHRIGHT, etc.

-1990 Robert Silverberg discussion which focused on Silverberg finally paying off a vicious divorce settlement agreement, and now being able to go back to writing deep non-commercial SF&F fiction stories vs what Silverberg had been churning out since the mid 1970s.

-The April 29th 1990 NY Times essay DOLLAR AND DRAGONS: THE TRUTH ABOUT FANTASY gets SFLers mildly riled up.

-Stories of Larry Niven visibly getting tired of  dealing with weird fans/weird fan conduct at SF&F conventions, which ties into Harlan Ellison's essay XENOGENESIS.

-Christian Science Fiction story discussion, with SFLer's making their cases for slotting certain authors/certain authors stories into the CSF sub-genre. 

-Dan Simmon's 1st book HYPERION finally starts getting discussed in the SFL Archives, along with slight drama about the sequel to Hyperion. Was it a publisher decision to split up the two books, why is a incompetent book proofing editor that half-asses their job at Doubleday allowed to keep their job when every third book they touch requires errata pages to be published/new print runs made.

-Magic & Technology discussion. It started off as misquotes of Arthur C Clarke on technology/magic, then spun off into a few people having very strong opinions on Aleister Crowley and Magik, and will not allow disinformation about Crowley/cheerleading about Crowley to happen without loud dissent and picking apart (line by line) opposing arguments about Aleister Crowley.

-The original version of Stephen King's THE STAND is released, with some SFLer's enjoying the refresh/pop culture updates in it, while other SFLer's seem it as an abomination that shows how Stephen King's popularity put him beyond the control of editors now, and why that is bad for the horror genre/any new Stephen King stories.

-SFLer's start theory-crafting a nonexistent sequel to the LENSMEN series using everything previously published in the Lensmen series along with some grabs from EE Smith's other series/other novels.

(2020 note: This discussion thread gets weird and of course the incest implication in the final Lensmen book gets mentioned over and over again.)

-Tons of B-movie & B-tv series discussion. Some of the movies and tv series were previously mentioned in my SFL ARCHIVES VOL 11 READTHROUGH UPDATE 08, however lots of new stuff has cropped up, and/or got vastly expanded on for people (like me) who had never heard of or seen any of these amazingly bad/innovative/terrible/low-budget/amusing works.

(2020 note: The sheer amount of stuff I have to recap for 1990 means I won't be doing a listing of shows/movies like back in SFL Vol 11 update 08,.............however that Gene Autry singing cowboy/underground civilization mashup movie is something I want to watch now, as well as the first two QUATERMASS movies/tv-serials along with a mostly forgotten Japanese Kaiju/giant robot tv-series called INFRAMAN....and maybe TIME RIDER too.)

-Marc Steigler's 1987 DAVID'S SLING having very good advice for Information filtering on the Internet circa 1989.

(2020 note: The information filtering advice is still sort of valid, so I'm just going to requote in full below.)

 In the Information Age, the first step to sanity is FILTERING.

    Filter the information; extract the knowledge.

    Filter first for substance. Filter second for significance.

    These filters protect against advertising.

    Filter third for reliability.

    This filter protects against politicians.

    Filter fourth for completeness.

    This filter protects from the media.

-Harlan Ellison's 1990 essay XENOGENESIS closes out SFL Vol 15a. XENOGENESIS was Ellison describing the bad, toxic and extremely abusive behavior SF&F fans feel free to display with qualms to SF&F authors like constant harassing anonymous phone calls, death threats, theft of author property, charging items under authors names, throwing vomit and worse directly into SF&F authors faces. Harlan Ellison's driving question is Why do SF&F authors have to put up with that kind of behavior while normal mainstream fiction authors do not?

The overall SFLer reaction to XENOGENESIS was extremely mixed (but mostly anti-Ellison). People involved in running conventions seemed angrier about Harlan Ellison airing dirty laundry and how it would impact their conventions vs the bad behavior being openly discussed, while counter-arguments gave evidence for Ellison's claims, and counter-counter arguments gave extenuating circumstances like vicious author abuse of fans at conventions and counter-counter-counter arguments brought up worse stuff (aka sexual assault, date-rape).

(2020 note: One of Harlan Ellison's claims of fan abuse can definitely be backed up. Someone *cough* pyrla!cracraft@caip.rutgers.edu (Stuart Cracraft) *cough* back in SFL Archives Vol 11 posted Ellison's personal phone number to the SF-LOVERS mailing list, and then humble-bragged about making repeated adversarial phone calls to Ellison).

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 14 readthrough update 01

SFL Archives Vol 14

7.5 mb raw text file

30 % completion, 45 bookmarks.

-Robert Tappan Morris's Internet Worm attack of 1988  gets mentioned as a brief sidenote in the SFL Archives.

(2020 note: This has been one of things I've been waiting to show up since Vol 02 or so of doing this SFL Archives readthrough attempt.) 

-SFLer's ask "What is the earliest historical fiction that you know of?"

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Picard vs STAR TREK: THE ORGINAL SERIES Kirk comparisons start happening. One SFLer uses the 1988 George Bush vs Michael Dukakis presidental election debates as to how they perceive Kirk & Picard.

(2020 note: This is one of the things I thought would happen ASAP in the SF-LOVERS mailing list once Star Trek: TNG aired. That it took midway through season 2 of TNG to happen is gratifying.)

-Constant re-occurring BLADERUNNER 1982 the movie discussion. The oddball replicant count in the movie, differences in the movie vs the book, Replicant memories, and "are the pictures Deckard looks at in the movie holograms?" given how small things move in them/are visible changing up the viewing angle.

-Stephen King book discussion: The Gunslinger book 2: DRAWING OF THE THREE comes out, and minor discussion of a Stephen King short story about matter teleportation (Jaunt?).

-First rumors of turning the WATCHMEN graphic novel into a movie start up, and some SFLer's think it a Watchmen adaptation might work better as tv-series.

(2020 note: Both possibilities happened, eventually, only extremely later than SFLers of 1989 expected.)

-Background details about why the movie BUCKAROO BANZAI 1984 is never getting a sequel. TLDR: 20th Century Fox f*cked themselves over multiple times, especially selling off ALL the videotape rights of Buckaroo Banzai 1984 for a pittance, then watched in impotent anger as the buyer of the videotape rights made a 2000% profit when Buckaroo Banzai went to videotape. 

-An explanation of exactly what roles & duties story/book packagers perform liasioning between literary agents, authors, and publishers; using Byron Preiss as an example.

-Three movies under production in early 1989 all using deep underwater settings/similar sounding plots: DEEPSTAR SIX, THE ABYSS and LEVIATHAN.

-J. Michael Straczynski anecdotes about behind the scenes production problems for the 1980's  revamp of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. SFLer's also note Straczynski's work as story editor for the now mostly forgotten CAPTAIN VIDEO childrens tv series.

-SFLer's start discussing "O LUCKY MAN!", a 1973 UK movie, and everything about it/in it sounds extremely bizarre. 

-Gay characters in SF (and Fantasy) discussion. Lots of interesting examples come up.

-Philip K Dick discussion, 1989 edition: PKD's paranoia about a home invasion, the ongoing changes of how PKD viewed the home invasion as his mental health declined, and one of PKD's "Dark-Haired Girls" comments on her PKD experiences in the early 1970's.

(2020 note: Not sure, but I think this the same Dark-Haired Girl that commented on her experiences with PKD back in Vol 03?/Vol 04/Vol 05? It was deeply fascinating and amazing when the DHG related PKD's plan to confuse/fuck the narcs that were constantly monitoring him.)

-A unofficial "CAN YOU OUT CYBERPROSE WILLIAM GIBSON/other cyberpunk writers?" SF-LOVERS challenge is issued, and as of mid May 1989, no SFLer has responded to the challenge.

(2020 note: Finished reading SFL Archives 1989, and no one rose to the challenge.)

-People managing the Hugo Awards nominations & vote counting process feel compelled to post about the existing procedures multiple times and insist nothing will go wrong for the 1989 Hugo Awards nomination & vote counting process, like what happened at WorldCon 1989.

-PLAGUE style stoy discussion, which seem very on-point from a 2020 perspective, with a resurgence of juvenile focused novels and television entertainment. 

-First SFL Archives mention of the 1989 movie TOTAL RECALL starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

-Julian May's PLIOSCENE COMPANION collection discussion, with special note made of how Julian May had most of the series planned out, and how the entire series setting was inspired by a kickass cosplay outfit Julian May designed/wore at a 1970's sci-fi convention.  

-THE TIDES OF GOD by Ted Reynolds discussion causing minor meltdowns by SFL people regarding religion, free will, and the Dark Ages only being European subcontinent based, not global. 

-Suzette Haden Elgin's OZARK TRILOGY being written as a direct response to all the sexist and dimissive behavior by male Sci-Fi writers towards women at convention panels.

-1989 anecdotes of how Glen Cook composed and wrote most of his stories/novels while working at General Motors, with special note taken of the timing required to perform his assembly line duties and write while on the assembly line

-A poll of what science-fiction tv series SFLer's thought were the worse of all time results in LOST IN SPACE "winning" the poll. A SFLer notes that no recent sci-fi related TV series got mentioned, and listed out a whole bunch of recentish 1980's sci-fi tv shows that had aired on US network television such as SMALL WONDER and OUT OF THIS WORLD. 

-A SFLer who requested stories abut the "introduction of anti-matter in science-fiction" comments on the responses they received from SFLers. 

(2020 note: the hurtful note when mentioning how a SFLer told them to look in the OED Supplement Vol 01 for references to anti-matter are the main reason I bothered mentioning this.)

-One SFLer noted the subgenre of "black vehicle scifi tv series of the 1980's" using AIRWOLF, STREET HAWK, and KNIGHT RIDER that all seemed to revolve around similar plots and setups.

-THE DESERT PEACH -a comic book about "The Desert Fox's pretty brother", based on Dona Barr's large fund of insider stories on the German army.

-Color coded convention badges/how various professional & amateur conventions handled convention security.

(2020 note: All these things will seem extremely quaint for people used to wifi networking & RFID badges at "modern" conventions.)

-Anecdotes of using a Larry Niven style RINGWORLD as Wargamer battle-royale setting. And how everything got derailed when one wargamer had howitzer's on their army list, and the opponent protested to the GM about needing special rules to adjust for the "coriolis forces experienced on a  Ringworld". Years later, allegedly, these two wargamers are still working out a "general set of equations for computing the trajectory of an object launched from the surface of a Ringworld."

-A college aged Jeff Vogel, who would go on to create the GENEFORGE & AVERNUM & EXILE & AVADON series of games posts about the TSR Dragonlance settings and the Dragonlance novels written.

-RED DWARF tv series part two: which covers most of the events/episodes of Red Dwarf series 1.

-Ed Greenwood at GENCON 1988 explains to a SFLer why his Forgotten Realms novel SPELLFIRE was so disjointed. Apparently, Greenwood wanted to make Spellfire mostly about his author-insert Elminster and Elminster's family in a Nine Princes of Amber way, but the TSR book editors said no.

(2020 note: It would take 6 more years for Ed Greenwood to get the first of his many "The Mary Sue adventures of Elminster" published, during the final stages of TSR's "publish everything, we need the quarterly product release statements to look amazing". 1 year later, TSR went bankrupt and got bought by Wizards of the Coast.)

-John Cramer uses the Internet to post a "open letter reply" to comments made about his "hard SF novel TWISTOR".

(2020 note: Authors posting open letter comments were not a common thing on the Internet at this point in 1989, so I felt this was of special archival interest.)

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 04

 SFL Archives Vol 13

5.9 mb raw text file

100% completion, 198 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-The surprisingly deep back catalogue of SCHOLASTIC PRESS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 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 03

 100% completion, 92 bookmarks.

-1987 technology level: How booksellers were able to determine what books were in print/what new titles were coming out before the Internet existed, a phonebook sized catalog released every 6 months named BOOKS IN PRINT.

-1987 technology level: a dismissive SPACE HARRIER arcade game reference, also the first mention of arcade games since the constant PAC-MAN puns back in 1980/1981 .

-The first appearance of "Trelane is Q" regarding STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION in SFL Archives history. There will be more statements and reworkings of this initial post.

-SIGN OF CHAOS discussion kicks off. Motivations of Dara, Jurt, Luke, etc. Merlin being extremely dim aka Roger Zelazny's series planning/lack of series planning, etc.

-STAR TREK chat: TransWarp. Why doesn't the Enterprise wrap everything in Vernor Vinge stasis-field bubbles/bobbles? SFLer's that have only read Larry Niven KNOWN SPACE stories and understand only the Nivenian take on stasis technology start to finally interact with SFLers that have read Vernor Vinge stories/ understand the Vingian bobbles/stasis fields.

-Western business have been increasingly importing (translated) Japanese business books (Kaizen and popular fiction in an attempt to replicate the dominance Japan automotive companies have shown vs Western automotive companies. KAIZEN & THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS are mentioned.

-The PRINCESS BRIDE movie comes out, the movie adaptation of George RR Martin's THE NIGHTFLYERS comes out, the MAX HEADROOM tv series gets cancelled after two seasons of poor ratings (ironic),  and the now vastly forgotten BEAUTY AND THE BEAST tv series starring Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman airs in the fall of 1987.

-THE HIDDEN 1987 movie comes out and lots of SFLer's notice the similarities in it to Hal Clement's Needle series about 2 alien life-forms coming to Earth/living inside bodies/1 of alien lifeforms being evil, and the other alien lifeform being a intergalactic cop hunting them down.

(2020 note: THE HIDDEN 1987 movie aged pretty well.) 

-A few SFLer's are confused by the concept of SPACE ELEVATORS in David Brin's SUNDIVER novel. 

(2020 note: To be fair, space elevators are a rare geeky subject in 2020, especially so circa 1987.)

-The Winter 1987 version of now forgotten weird SF&F themed tv-shows: CAPTAIN POWER the lightgun focused tv series, the Andy Griffith SALVAGE 1 tv-show comes up again, HERCULOIDS, TEEN FORCE, OTHERWORLD, THUNDARR, THE PEOPLE, SHAZAM!, BATMAN AND THE SUPER SEVEN, CLIFFHANGERS, etc.

-One of the first mentions of M John Harrison in the SFL Archives. The VIRICONIUM series and THE CENTAURI DEVICE are discussed. First mention of Brian Herbert(son of Frank Herbert) and his GARBAGE CHRONICLES series

-SPACE EATER (David Langford), DOOMSDAY EFFECT (Thomas Wren), REINDEER MOON (Elisabeth Marshall Thomas),  Change War stories by Fritz Leiber, WORD-BRINGER (Edward Llewellyn), EC Tubb's DUMAREST SAGA, IT: THE TERROR BEYOND SPACE movie, TRAVELLERS REST (David J Mason), URTH OF THE NEW SUN/EMPIRES OF FOLIAGE AND FLOWER (Gene Wolfe).

-SFLer's debate future policing methods of the 2030's in fiction and what they think will happen IRL and the IRL predictions are so far off the target from a 2020 viewpoint it is painful to even mention.

-Upcoming Convention notices in the SFL Archives break out of the moratorium they have been under since 1983. This leads to the first standalone posting of the NECRONOMICON convention in the SFL Archives.

-MORIGU: THE DESECRATION illustrates the differences of opinions SFLer's have on books. One SFLer loves it and recommends it to others because the dwarven behavior in it is such a amusing loutish contrast to the uptight Elves also in it. Another SFLer found it dark and brooding and filled with way too much blood, gore and hyper-violence to enjoy MORIGU or bother reading any sequels to it.

-First mention of a Net interview occurring with crowd-sourced questions for the interviewee in the SFL Archives. Vonda McIntyre is the interviewee and the SFLer requesting unique questions lays out the now standard ground rules of "don't be an asshole/don't doxx their personal life/don't be sexist". 

-A slight uptick in why F&SF books get published over others leads to mentions of Judy-Lynn Del Rey's (rip) efforts to get some older iconic fantasy and science fiction stories republished, which lead to SFLer Chuq Von Rospach establishing themselves as the 1987 SFLer who knows everything book publisher/author/SFWA related.

-I find myself agreeing with Mark R. Leeper on certain books/movies (LIFEFORCE). Turns out that Evelyn & Mark Leeper are capable of delivering good critiques and reviews on things F&SF related, if they take the time to do so. Unfortunately, Evelyn & Mark Leeper prefer posting extremely rushed "First Impression" 60 second reviews of everything Fantasy & Science Fiction they come across. 

-Vampire stories/Dracula focused stories suddenly becomes a thing for 3 or 4 dedicated SFL Digests. Dracula backstory/future history after resurrecting, with Anne Rice's LESTAT series and her earlier under a pen-name vampire stories coming up.

-A SFLer wants to know the rules to the PYRAMIDS poker game variant in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 1978 tv-series. 

-SFLer Tim Iverson establishes themselves as the SFLer willing to throw down 24/7/366 over William Gibson/NEUROMANCER criticism.

-Raymond Feist RIFTWAR series discussion. Feist has come up a few times before but nothing serious that lasted beyond 2 posts until now. Raymond Feist writing his novels for audiences pre-conditioned to understand the references and monsters that Feist brings up, but never describe in detail. Feist's RIFTWAR series being based on a real RPG setting, with Feist working at a few RPG development companies while planning out/writing the RIFTWAR books.

-7th Doctor DOCTOR WHO series feedback trickles in as 1987 closes out. SFLer's who post about the 7th Doctor episodes really cannot stand Bonnie Langford, with the final Doctor Who related post in SFL Vol 12b being about a new female Companion called Ace replacing Bonnie Langford. 

-The 2nd thrugh 5th episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION come out in the fall/winter of 1987. SFLer's initial to the 2nd episode are still mostly complaints/nitpickings, with mild hopes Q was/is a one-off character. Proto-Incels start referring to Troi as BETAMAX. Mild complaints about Data and Wesley being over-powered in the 2nd episode. Hating on Tasha Yar tapers off,  SFler's note Troi not really having a function on the bridge. The infamous flower-hippies episode airs, and then the mildly racist Ferengi episode, then the creepy Traveller -that-has-grooming-plans-for-Wesley airs. By the time the 5th TNG episode airs gradual acceptance of most of the TNG cast except for Wesley Crusher has sent in. A vocal subset of the SFLer's who watch ST: TNG start  theory-crafting ways Wesley Crusher could be killed/aged up and sent to StarFleet Academy ASAP, etc.  

-A SFLer reposts an infamous circa 1987 open-letter to Gene Roddenberry about STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and the canned response it got.

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

Date: Fri,  6 Nov 87  11:56:59 EST

From: NCC1701%UMASS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu

Subject: The letter...

                                                Linda Peterson

Mr. Gene Roddenberry

"Star Trek"

ABC

Dear Sir:

  Although I am not a confirmed "Trekie", I looked forward to the

new Star Trek television series.  My overwhelming disappointment

caused me to write this letter.

  My concerns:

       Do you really believe in white male supremacy?  Surely the

       future will be more equitable - such as...

          An "Asian type" captain (we are outnumbered now by Asian

          peoples).  Also, baldness in the future?  I doubt it.

          Jonathan Frakes just does not have the face of a strong,

          aggressive "Number One" - perhaps a Latino, or a Jimmy

          Smits type.

          Do you really see "Miss Emotion" going into battle in a

          mini-skirt?!  The costumes in general lack imagination.

          Mr. Data looks like PeeWee Herman with his off-white skin

          and slicked back hair.  All the hairstyles seem to some

          from yuppie America.

          Do we really need another TV show with the young wiz-kid,

          who will obviously save the day.  Heck, why not add Lassie

          to the cast.

  Yes, the show did have some strong points.  The storyline fit the

mold.  The Klingon and "Blind" crew member are interesting.  Surely

the show will progress.  Maybe there will be an accident and some of

the crew will have to be replaced.  I won't change the channel yet.

  Thanks for listenning.

                                   Sincerely,

                                   /s/ Linda Peterson

10/5/87

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

Date: Fri,  6 Nov 87  11:57:40 EST

From: NCC1701%UMASS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu

Subject: The Reply...

Paramount Pictures Corporation

October 27, 1987

Ms. Linda Peterson

Dear Ms. Peterson,

Thank you for your recent letter to Gene Roddenberry.  Although his

schedule doesn't permit him to respond to you personally, he has

taken the time to read your comments.  He is glad you felt strongly

enough about STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION to let him know your

thoughts about it.

Many of the suggestions we received in letters such as yours have

merit and may influence future episodes.  We hope you will continue

to watch STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION to see these developements.

Sincerely,

/s/Susan Sackett

Susan Sackett

Assistant to Gene Roddenberry

SS:akd

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

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