SFL Archives Vol 12a readthrough update 01

16% completion, 26 bookmarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 03

 SFL Archives Vol 11: 25% completion, 78 bookmarks (more than a few bookmarks were redundant and got cleaned up)

-The reason why Alexei Panshin had a decades long break getting stories published becomes clearer. (Panshin apparently signed a multi-book contract for the advance money, Panshin then tried to weasel out of the book contract commitment by submitting stories *co-authored* with his wife...publishers did not react well to shenanigans they normally pulled on authors happening to them)

-One shot SF&F authors of the 1980's get discussed and a few of them/their stories sound interesting (Hilbert Schenck, Barrington Bayley, Denis Johnson, John Sladek, etc)

-COSMOS, a 17 chapter SF round-robin "write your way out of this" serial written almost exclusively by future SF editors/authors inside the 1933 fanzine SCIENCE FICTION DIGEST 

-Some SFLers have devolved into posting lists of books and author bibliographies in response to other SFLers making 1000+ word essay-posts

-SFLers start asking what deeper meaning Ridley Scott intended by costuming Tim Curry in gallons of red paint, a foam bodybuilder suit and fake horns in the 1985 movie LEGEND. (2020 take: Ridley Scott putting 97% of his effort on the visuals of a film & 1% effort on the movie script never gets hypothesized by 1986 SFLers)

-Vernor Vinge's PEACE WAR comes up, and how the bobbles (aka stasis field technology) in PEACE WAR could be used IRL across multiple fields like construction, civilian, military, space exploration, etc.

-Philip Jose Farmer's unauthorized vulturing of other SF&F authors work gets mentioned multiple times, re the PJF authored VENUS ON A HALF-SHELL and the PJF authored Necronomicon

-SFLers note that Jack Chalker's stories all seeming to have involuntary species + gender swaps for main characters and the subsequent kinky sex that happens due to species/gender changes makes me very happy I have only read one of Jack Chalker's stories (it was notable for the extreme speed of the plot movement vs modern fantasy books) and nothing more. 

-Diane Duane's STAR TREK novels get brought up and fans of Diane Duane/fans of STAR TREK fiction might find things of note being discussed that I haven't 

-More SFLer's discover Michael Moorcock and the ETERNAL CHAMPION stories, which [sarcasm mode]Robert Heinlein definitely did not rip off for his Number of the Beast book[/sarcasm mode].

-The SF-LOVERS t-shirt project gets relaunched with a cluttered seeming graphic design (two interstellar aliens reading SF-LOVERS on a terminal with a scarier interstellar alien creeping up behind the reader aliens)

-An SFLer on the hunt for unique for PhD thesis material asks "What is the etymology behind "filksongs/fens/fen?" (2020: I will 110% be skipping all further posts regarding this subject)

-Steven Brust regains ARPANET acess and happily continues posting to the SF-LOVERS mailing list, to my utter non-delight as a avid non-fan of SKZB

-Lots and lots of LORD OF THE RINGS/Tolkien lore chat: Is Gandalf one of the Maia, why didn't Gandalf instantly ace the door-lock "say friend" test trying to get into Moria, was Legolas a backwoods (giggle) uneducated elf-hick or was Legolas just not willing to embarrass Gandalf about elf-language in front of the mortals? (2020 note: I can't remember how many supplemental LoTR books Christopher Tolkien had published up to this point in 1986. Also, RIP Christopher Tolkien)

-Funny SF stories requests. Henry Kuttner gets recommended a bunch, especially Kuttner's "drunk inventor-genius" stories. Spider Robinson's work gets recommended too (2020 take: Spider Robinson is a trap. Do Not Read. DO NOT READ.) BILL THE GALACTIC HERO gets recommended (2020 take: Bill the Galactic Hero IS NOT a trap read.)

- HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster fan recipes and anecdotes of drinking those fan recipes.

-The 1980's reboot of the TWILIGHT ZONE series viability is in doubt, and a doomed Save the Twilight Zone fan-campaign gets started.

-Locus Magazine mentions that Robert Aspirin has signed a multi-book deal for more MYTH stories (2020 take: Aspirin would pull a Panshin 2.0 move, only in Aspirin's case it was (mostly) IRS back-taxes related).

-A SFLer pitches a survey dedicated to filksong *cannonical collections of 'whimsically' regular words* and I promise to skip over any future posts on this just as much as posts about etymology of filksongs/fen/fens

-An PLAYBOY short story article called "TIME IS MONEY" gets brought up and discussed. (2020 take: doing a moderate reworking of that idea circa 2020 might win you the 2020/2021 PROMETHEUS AWARD aka the Hugo Award for Libertarians)

-1985 movie THE STUFF gets brought up again and from a 2020 standpoint it sounds more surrealistic than 1983 movie LIQUID SKY.

-CODEX SERAPHINIANUS gets brought up a few times. Knowing nothing about it  and refusing to google it, the CODEX SERAPHINIANUS sounds alot like the VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

-Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova suing broadcast television networks & the producers of TERMINATOR 1 over stolen pitched-to-Hollywood ideas to get some sweet sweet settlement money comes up again. 

-A few SFLer's get around to watching Akira Kurosawa's HIDDEN FORTRESS and start noticing similarities/homages/outright scene reenactments of it that George Lucas did in STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE

-the AYES OF TEXAS get reviewed by Mark Leeper, and *even Mark Leeper, master of surface level oblivious reviews* picks up on the TEXAS slant in it.

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 04

-John Varley's short stories "THE BARBIE MURDERS", "PRESS ENTER" and "MILLENIUM" keep getting mentioned. From a 2020 perspective, John Varley's stories and writing aged better than Spider Robinson's work but not by much. 

-People can see the seams where Orson Scott Card's 1977 short story Ender's Game got Bloater-Drive expanded into the 1985 award winning novel ENDERS GAME.

-Female writers across multiple genres, and feminist SF gets discussed with Joanna Russ's HOW TO SUPRESS WOMEN'S WRITING getting prominently mentioned

-Isaac Asimov's creepy interactions with women gets brought up repeatedly as Fall 1985 hits. A particularly poorly aged Asimov penned article in the BOSKONE 22 program guide gets brought up. tldr...Asimov probably most definitely sexually harassed Shawna McCarthy out of her job as editor-in-chief of a little known SciFi magazine called "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine". Keep in mind, this is 1985 SFL posters saying the Asimov Boskone 22 article aged poorly and to further clarify things Boskone 22 happened back in February 1985.

-Scientology starts getting discussed. Much EL RON HUUUUBBBBARRRD weirdness. A weirdly specific promotion contest for the upcoming BATTLEFIELD EARTH movie, to be filmed in Colorado.

(2020 sidenote: There was only one Battlefield Earth movie made, the year 2000 one starring John Travolta. It appears that Battlefield Earth was stuck in development hell for a long long time. For additional amusement factor, think of all the amazing books/book series with optioned movie rights that have been stuck in development limbo forever. Like STARS MY DESTINATION, old-man KING CONAN, CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, CONSIDER PHLEBAS, etc. Now remember that the GOR series managed to have a real movie made starring real Hollywood actors....queue infinite Tidus from Final Fantasy X laugh).

-Really angry feedback happens when the 1985 SFLer whose gimmick is posting 800+ word essays on the "THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE FICTION TODAY" says that Spider Robinson is a hack writer (2020 take: TRUTH), and that Samuel R Delany's DHALGREN is over-rated. 

-A SFLer in 1985 manages to predict both the clone army Kill Order 66 gimmick and the Robot Drone armies in the STAR WARS prequel movies.

-Lack of new STAR WARS content has people Zapruder film analyzing Ewok cuteness levels, the uselessness of Storm Trooper armor, ammo clips vs charge-paks on blasters, whether or not blasters are energy weapons vs explosive projectiles, and how lightsabers really work (super polished mirrors, plasma and extending rigid mono-filaments get mentioned)

-A 1985 Paramount Studios press release giving the general real outline of STAR TREK 4 comes out, and ruins the vicarious fun of peoples wild-ass guesses about Star Trek 4's plot.

-A interesting recap-summary of the talk Ellen Asher of the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) gave at a meeting of the New Jersey Science Fiction sometime in 1985. The recap summary mentioned the 7 different genre book clubs Doubleday had running at the time, and how book of the month selections were made, etc.

-Differences between the American & UK editions of the HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY books come up. It is mostly changes to what brand of cars people owned, the names of the Krikkit gate-key items, and Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged insults.

-Bookstore chains B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks (people who grew up in the USA during the 1980s & 1990s will remember these names) versus independently owned bookstores...lots of interesting sounding regional independent bookstores that may/may not/probably do not exist anymore.

-SFL Archives technical minutia chat including the origins of the SF-LOVERS mailing list and the real paranoia one of the longest running SF-LOVERS moderator had about getting called up before a Congressional committee headed by William Proxmire regarding SF-LOVERS leeching from US Government resources.

-DOCTOR WHO had a extended 18 month hiatus announced earlier in 1985 that threatened to be a permanent series ending hiatus. Mail in efforts, call in efforts to the BBC, and elected British officials got the hiatus window shrunk. One of the downsides or bonuses of the SFL Archives read-through is witnessing hubris destroying and wrecking more and more bits of the Doctor Who franchise every time John Nathan-Turner opens his mouth and drives away more Doctor Who actors, writers, budget planners.

-First mention of the TEENAGE NINJA MUTANT TURTLES comic book in the SFL Archives, the TNMT cartoon series most people are familiar with happened much later

-HARMONY GOLD. MACROSS SAGA. ROBOTECH. HARMONY GOLD. CAPTAIN HARLOCK. Waves of people chiming into add that Robotech is a mere bastardization of 3 different Japanese animation series. Harmony Gold seriously wants their Gold.

-New Robert Heinlein book "THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS" gets released and ties everything Heinlein has ever written closer together, which some Heinlein fans like and other people just groan about. Lazarus Long openly acting like the literal mother-fucking douchebag he is makes some of the Heinlein defense squad turn in their "I HEART EVERYTHING HEINLEIN" badges.

-A few SFL edgelords get offended by all the feminist SF being mentioned and start trolling the feminist SF discussion thread by confusing who is a female writer and claiming that GOR and Heinlein are peak feminist SF.

-Steven Brust quits his job that has ARPANET access to become a full-time writer. Farewell SKZB, I will not miss you.

-The 1985 AMAZING STORIES tv series, the 1980's TWILIGHT ZONE reboot, and 1980's Alfred Hitchcock Presents tv-serials all come out around the same time and get discussed heavily. Amazing Stories has amazing visuals but not so much amazing plots or storytelling. 2020 take: this was where Steven Spielberg encountered a rare setback in his career (cashing out on the Medal of Honor videogame series before it hit big was Spielberg's 2nd setback). It turns out producing tv movies under contract is hard, especially since John Landis fucked up everything regarding child-actors with the Twilight Zone movie and malicious negligence lawsuits.

-The SHAVER MYSTERY aka a variation of the HOLLOW EARTH CONSPIRACY THEORY gets mentioned in detail because Richard Shaver was a 1940s scifi writer.

-How to get published as a new SF&F writer part 3: a daisy wheel ink-cartridge worth of SFL self-doxxed authors chiming in to give advice, conflicting advice, overriding conflicting advice and patronizing humble brags.

-A proposal to put the SF-LOVERS mailing list onto microfiche to preserve it for future study. Pretty sure the NSA already has that covered for you, 1985 person.

-Stephen King/Richard Bachman stories get discussed more, THINNER is the latest Stephen King written book being discussed as 1985 closes out

-The variety of mono-sex societies in fiction. Either all female societies, or all male societies, maintained via cloning, artificial insemination, or physical separation after birth to all male/all female zones. Outside forces usually arrive and hijinks happen but not like the creepy shit Star Trek:TNG got up too.

-Greg Bear's past few books (EON, INFINITY CONCERTO, etc) haven't impressed anyone posting about them in the SFL in 1985 and some people wonder if Greg Bear has peaked already or just hit a very very rough spot in his career.

-The movie ENEMY MINE based on a novella of the same name comes out at the very end of 1985. One of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION's best episodes, Darmok, "heavily" borrowed from Enemy Mine.

-"Do decompressing human bodies in outer space explode, implode or other"? discussion...2001 the movie is the main reference point for this discussion

-A insane seeming story about the last fertile man on Earth after a nuclear accident called MR ADAM by Pat Frank. This is how MR ADAM first got mentioned in the SFL

quote:

One of the secretaries here was talking about a book she read called
MR. ADAM. It was apparently written in the late 40's and concerned
a nuclear accident which left the male population of the earth
sterile, except for one man. As she explained it, the book
concerned the government's efforts at repopulation via this one man.

BTW, she said the book was hilarious. (Anyone with a pointer to
finding a copy?)

And that wraps up SFL Volume 10 summaries for me, at least regarding weird, bizarre, horrifying and retroactively interesting things in it.

originally posted September 2nd in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 10 readthrough update 02

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SFL Archives Vol 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 09 readthrough update 02

Vol 09 covered all of 1984, which explains why Vol 09 never seemed to end. Reading SFL Vol 10 is going to be much worse, since Vol 10 covers the entirety of 1985 while being twice the size of the endless seeming SFL Vol 09.

 -A request from the current mailing list mod for SFL subscribers to cut back on outright ads/product reviews/pricing/prices, since the SF-LOVERS mailing list runs ontop of government funded ARPANET networks/nodes and absolutely must not be seen to be selling things.

-BackStabMod can't stop posting thinly disguised product reviews about what amazing things BackStabMod has encountered recently in SFF. 

-anticipation for the upcoming DUNE movie has (mostly) overriden Stars Wars chat in the SFL archives towards the end of 1984, similar to the 3 or more dedicated Dune 2020 movie threads scattered around the SA forums. Dune comes out at end of 1984 and gets very mixed SFLer reactions. Same thing happens with 2010, but with lesser buildup, and more anger since 2001 the movie set such a high bar.

-lots of Thomas Pynchon chat, with how readable you find Gravity's Rainbow or how far you managed to get into GRAVITY'S RAINBOW being a litmus test for true literature fans.

-circa November 1984 Harlan Ellison discussion brings up the pitfalls of being an author, with stalker fans, asshole fans, kleptomaniac fans, fans doing "ironic hate crimes" on author property, etc.

-the movie BRAINSTORM (1983) gets mentioned again after literal years closing off a dangling thread-topic from earlier SFL archives chat (way back in Vol 3 or 4 I think). Brainstorm 1983 getting delayed lead to an interesting-to-me SFL segue into "insurance polices as applied to Hollywood movies/tv production" that I found deeply fascinating because those topics never get mentioned much.

-If you liked Iain Banks FEERSUM ENDJINN, you may want to check out Russell Hoban's "RIDDLEY WALKER", which did something similar 14 yrs before Feersum Endjinn came out.

-Fans of Tim Powers and Steven Brust: ANUBIS GATES and JHEREG both get mentioned for the first time in the SFL archives.

-heated "Is Richard Bachman a pen-name of Stephen King?" debate kicks off. The answer is Look it up yourself

-Someone does a big part-1 effort-post describing and charting out Jorge Luis Borges' "LIBRARY OF BABEL", but gets no feedback on it so the SFL effort-poster never posts part 2. 

(2020 sidenote:  I feel you brother from 16 yrs ago, f**k them.)

-Anger and debate movie book novelizations not matching up 1:1 to the movie, or vice versa has been a running theme since 1979(SFL Vol 01). BUCKAROO BANZAI (1984) breaks this trend, with the book setting the tone the movies budget/casting/directing could not match

-TERMINATOR 1 came out, starting the rise of 1980's one-liner action movies

-SFLer's bring up one of MAD MAGAZINE's earlier attempts to branch out into non-print media: the 1967 Mad Monster Party movie slash cartoon.

-Much to my disappointment, David Eddings does get mentioned for a 2nd time in SFL Vol 09. To add to the pain, a spirited defense of MZB's strongly written female characters also happens.

-1980's_BotL/Duntemann continues to troll and hate on published fiction authors, especially R. A. MacAvoy. 1980's_BotL/Duntemann also outed themselves as an author (or re-doxxed themselves since I don't keep track of all the SFL author self-doxxes) and stuff now starts to makes sense. Why? The published fiction authors being trolled and hated on managed to get book deals, while Duntemann up to this point has been unable to get book deals at all.

-the running joke "Yngvi is a louse!!" gets cited and expanded upon but never quite nailed down before SFL Vol 09 ends

-fittingly, SFL Vol 09 ends with a "Boskone XXII Filksong contest" announcement, completing the "stuff I hate seeing in the SFL archives" disappointment trifecta. 

originally posted August 8th - August 10th in SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3