SFL Archives Volume 20b readthrough

 SFL Archives Volume 20b

4.6 mb raw text file

100% completion, 206 bookmarks

Movies, television shows referenced: JUDGE DREDD, SPECIES 1, DARKMAN 2, WATERWORLD, STANLEY KUBRICKS A.I., LORD OF ILLUSIONS, AFTERSHOCKS, VIRTUOSITY, THE NET, SPEED 1, HELLRAISER 4, HIDEAWAY, THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE, OUTER LIMITS (1990s), DOCTOR WHO, DEADLY GAMES, STRANGE LUCK, SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND (tv series), LEGENDARY JOURNEYS OF HERCULES, XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS, TOP COPS, NOWHERE MAN (tv series), LOIS AND CLARK, SEAQUEST DSV, THE X-FILES, AMERICAN GOTHIC, W.E.I.R.D. WORLD, ALIEN NATION: BODY AND SOUL, STRANGE DAYS, HALLOWEEN 6, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, SHOWGIRLS, STARSHIP TROOPERS 1, POWDER, GODZILLA VS THE SMOG MONSTER, INVADERS (tv series), WING COMMANDER: THE MOVIE, SCREAMERS. 

SF&F stories referenced: KALIEDOSCOPE CENTURY, WIZARDS SHADOW, SOUL OF THE LION, FAMOUS MONSTERS, INITIATE BROTHER, GATHERER OF CLOUDS, EVOLUTION, RESURRECTION MAN, STEEL BEACH, THE MOHOLE MENACE, OUT OF THIS WORLDS, HOMECOMING, RING OF SWORDS, SKIN, FATHERLAND, FLIES FROM THE AMBER, COELISTIS, DEAD MR MOZART, ROBOT CITY (book series), DHALGREN, AXIOMATIC, GREATWINTER SAGA (book series), 1945 (novel), BUTCHER BIRD, THE BASTARD PRINCE, PURAGTORY, THE BIG U, ZAP GUN, A SORCEROR AND A GENTLEMAN, THE ARMLESS MAIDEN, THE AVATAR, NEW LEGENDS, THE LAST STARSHIP FROM EARTH, SECRET IMMORTALS, LOVELOCK, GENELIAN: PLANETFALL, HITLER VICTORIOUS, RATS AND GARGOYLES, KING AND RAVEN, COMING HOME, WELL AT WORLDS END, A BREACH IN THE WATERSHED, THE RUINS OF AMBRAI, ICEWIND DALE TRILOGY (book series), PASTEL CITY, DYING INSIDE, SHOTGUN CURE, THE WEREWOLF PRINCIPLE, FIFTH HEAD OF CEREBUS, THE KO CONSPIRACY, VAMPIRE$, CINNABAR, PRISONERS HOPE, WOMAN WITHOUT A SHADOW, GUILTY PLEASURES, ISOBEL AVENS RETURNS TO STEPHNEY IN THE SPRING, MILLENIUM, THE BIG TIME, THIS PERFECT DAY, WINTER ROSE, THE SARDONYX NET, THE DEATH OF CHAOS, GRYPHON FEATHER, THE STOLEN GODDESS, THE MIRROR OF HELEN, THE PRESTIGE, CLARKE COUNTY SPACE, HUNTING WABBIT, THE AMTRACK WARS (book series), THE MISPLACED LEGION, I ASIMOV, BRIGHTNESS REEF, THE POSTMAN, EREHWON, WRACK AND ROLL, WIZARDS FIRST RULE, AMMONITE, THE LAST OF THE WINE, THE STAR FRACTION, TERMINAL FREEDOM, SPECULATIONS INC, THE GOLDEN NINETIES, D-99, FOOTFALL, IROSHI, ISLANDS IN THE NET, YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN, STAR OF THE GUARDIAN, CITY OF BONES, ELEMENT OF FIRE, SHRODINGERS CAT TRILOGY (book series), FREE LIVE FREE, CONSIDER PHEBLAS, HEADCRASH, QUASAR, THE WITCHES OF KARRES, THE COLOR OF DISTANCE, WHAT MAD UNIVERSE?, CHICKS IN CHAINMAIL, THE GOD-FEARER, EVOLUTIONS SHORE, PHOENIX AND MIRROR, BAKERS BOY, THE BLOODY RED BARON, SHADOWS END, A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, TRUE NAMES AND THE OPENING OF THE CYBERSPACE FRONTIER, HEIRS OF EMPIRE, HISTORY OF FANNISH ART, ENDYMION, MASKERADE, FREEZE FRAMES, HOT TIME IN OLD TOWN, GATE TO WOMENS COUNTRY, BELGARATH, THE CRYSTAL STAR, CANDLELIGHT, EXILES, HISTORICAL GAMES, A SONG CALLED YOUTH. 

Pop culture references: "..our culture's Madonna-whore complex" (from a SFLer review of SPECIES 1), alt.sex.stories, a whole field of metaphysics devoted to the study of memes, the VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT, 1990's pop culture's fixation on the 1960s, BORDERS bookstores, the standard price of a paperback SFF novel being $5.99, "Minneapolis-based gothic folk-duo THE FLASH GIRLS, "van Dannikin-style cults", the Carnegie Mellon Tartan college newspaper, a cancelled 1995 (OJ) Simpson interview on NBC, GODZILLA BATTLES GAMERA IN OSAKA.

Technology callbacks: a virus protection program called GateKeeper being referenced in the 1995 movie THE NET, floppy disks, Video Toaster CGI rendering, BITNET networking, David Wingrove of Chung Kuo series co-authoring a MYST the CDROM game novelization, AOL.COM SFF web portals, the etaoin shrdlu keyboards on Linotype machines, the Martian Chronicles CDROM game. 

1995 Death notices: John Brunner, SFF author. Jack Finney, SFF author & SFF-Horror scriptwriter.

SFL requests/discussion topics:

> Baudino: series

> Roger Zelazny

> Sex in Mercedes Lackey Novels

> The amazingly weird plotlines in the JUDGE DREDD comics

> The publishing ethics of Larry Niven, Piers Anthony, etc

> L. Ron Hubbard

> Dan Simmons HYPERION series 

> David Weber/Honor Harrington

> David Wingrove/Chu Kuo defense squad posting

> SF adapted to comicbook format

> Gregory Benford works

> ???Piers Anthony??? Good Books?

> L'Engle's books banned??

> Computer Sentience

> Philip K. Dick and why's he so great?

> Nicola Griffith's AMMONITE

> What Happened to John Norman and the Gor Books

> (Larry) Niven Starter Request

> Martha Wells books

> Gene Wolfe discussion

> Harlan Ellison Vapor-books

> Sime/Gen series

> (Greg) Bear Does Not Suck 

-People start commenting on how extremely messed up John Barnes KALIEDOSCOPE CENTURY is. When the iron-gutted people of SFL Archives 1995 think a SFF story is deeply messed up, it is going to be extremely beyond deeply heavily messed up by 2021 SFF standards.

-The six dreaded words that doom many reading attempts in fiction: "I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE".

-Throughout the history of the SFL Archives, this question has been asked more times than anything STAR WARS or STAR TREK or BABYLON 5 related.......Does anyone know what happened to David Palmer, author of EMERGENCE/Did David Palmer write a sequel to EMERGENCE?

-Periodic HONOR HARRINGTON book series discussion. Mostly notable for 3rd party hearsay of Weber having signed a 16 book contract with BAEN BOOKS sometime in late 1995, and the existence of the "DO NOT KILL LIST" for certain Honorverse side characters.

-Russian SF: A Candid Recent History explaining why most of the Russian SFF published during the 1990s is reprintings of Russian samizdat era SFF.

-DRAGON-CON 1995 & the 1995 NASFIC conventions were scheduled together to run at the same time and same site in Atlanta Georgia USA. SFLer NASFIC attendees were not prepared for the amount of games & comics at DragonCons & the lack of handicapped access, and most everyone noted the bad culture between DragonCon managed panels/artwork sales vs NASFIC managed panels/artworks. Some of the more hysterical NASFIC SFLer's swear they witnessed pornstars giving autographs in the dealers room/saw hardcore porn being sold in the dealers room. Other more stable SFLer's noted the alleged "pornstars giving autographs" were B-Movie stars and the tapes were B-Movies.

-LYONESSE aka Ermonie aka Parmenia being the legendary lost land between Cornwall UK and the Scilly Isles in lots of UK folklore & myths, which many SFF authors have implemented in their own stories. 

-WORLDCON 1995 aka INTERSECTION 1995 happens and no-one who attended it was happy. The site choosen for Intersection 1995 was a massive compromise/test to see if the bid committee behind Intersection 1995 could actually reserve a site of such a size, the site was massively handicapped unfriendly at all levels, beyond terrible Worldcon event scheduling, ultra beyond terrible placement of Worldcon events, unfriendly convention venue staff. Unfriendly security guards, hotels blocks apart, hotel party corkage fees, and the disconnect between USA style convention parties with free food and the EU/UK convention goer reactions to "free food" convention parties (hoard of vultures descending and elbows being thrown like being in a rugby match at the free food tables got mentioned hard). Finally, the Intersection 1995 management people tried shaming local aka "living in the UK" convention attendees into volunteering extremely hard during convention id signins, demotivating many casual UK SFF fans while managing to piss off a bunch of dedicated hardcore UK SFF fans. Plus something about the filk room having a superb rendition of the American Princess Cat Song.

-SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND premieres and many SFLers post about it. SAAB is one of the vaguely remembered SFF tv-series that I have been waiting to see appear in the SFL Archives. Many SFLers tear apart the pilot episode & first two normal episodes of SAAB, pointing out various things that don't make sense. (The F-18's, non USMC haircuts, the short boot camp for pilot-commandos, the tankee clone underpeople, the viewpoint character being a massive fuckup, et). Some SFLers gradually warm up to SAAB over the fall/winter of 1995, while others continue to rip it apart. 

-Neil Gaiman headlining a COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND event to fight censorship at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco CA USA  on Halloween 1955.

-Notes on the 1995 WSFS Business Meeting Report.

-First mention of the upcoming 1996 Olympic Games to be held in Atlanta Georgia USA. 

(2021 note: Distant echoing horns played in my mind when the 1996 Olympic Games got mentioned. Wondering what the SFL Archives reaction will be to the domestic terrorist bombing of the 1996 Olympic Games and the heroization then demonization of Richard Jewell by CNN.)

-David Feintuch returns to the SFL Archives to respond to various SFLers comments on his SEAFORT SAGA series. Turns out Feintuch was massively depressed when he originally wrote the series, so he wrote what he knew and and made the main character in his SEAFORT SAGA series a massively unstable person that kept screaming at people wanting to help/stopping people from doing basic spaceship safety related things, then always pulling a "IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN!! (not to scream at people wanting to do their spacejobs)" later on. Supposedly Feintuch wrote all 4 Seafort stories at once before getting a publishing contract, and alleged Seafort was much much worse/way more unstable in the original versions of the SEAFORT SAGA stories that Feintuch wrote.

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

Date: Fri, 22 Sep 95 03:39:33 -0500

From: Dave Feintuch <midave@delphi.com>

Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu

Subject: Re: Prisoner's Hope by David Feintuch

Don Croyle <croyle@fwi.com> writes:

>Yes.  The foreshadowing is more heavy handed and Seafort is still having

>major self esteem problems.

 

   Seafort's self-esteem problems were so much a part of the original

writing (remember all four books were completed before the series was

bought) that it was impossible to remove it completely, even though by the

time Prisoner came out, I had toned it down considerably.

 

>One nice thing is that it's set mainly on a planet so we see more of the

>background society in general.  Looks to me like even in this world

>Seafort is considered to have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.

 

   Absolutely.  But I never claimed he hadn't...  :) It is one of his flaws

that he can;t seem to do much about.

 

   Hope you liked it.

 

Dave Feintuch

MIDAVE@DELPHI.COM

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

Date: Fri, 22 Sep 95 03:46:33 -0500

From: Dave Feintuch <midave@delphi.com>

Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu

Subject: Re: Prisoner's Hope by David Feintuch

John Peterson <jpeterso@panix.com> writes:

>I don't know what it is about these books.  The last two have been real

>depressing, but I just couldn't put them down.  Am I alone in this?

 

   Interesting... Things were not going all that well in my life when I

wrote this.  (See the preface to the Science Fiction Book Club edition for

elaboration.)  The depression, which fits in with the story, seemed quite

natural to me at the time.

 

>I think Seafort makes Thomas Covenant look like Mr. Self Esteem.

 

   Hehe.  As I've mentioned elsewhere, I DID tune down the lack of self

esteem considerably from the early versions.  He was a complete basket

case, as originaly written.  I think, though, that you'll see where all

this is headed when you read the final novel, FISHERMAN'S HOPE.  There is,

believe it or not, a reason for his feeling as he does.

 

Dave Feintuch

MIDAVE@DELPHI.COM

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

-Slight weirdness over who originally published the M John Harrison story ISOBEL AVENS RETURNS TO STEPHNEY IN THE SPRING, with Ellen Datlow offering corrections on it's published history.

-Rutgers University, hosting site of the SFL Archives mailing disables BITNET networking support.

(2021 note: BITNET was a 1980's New England regional computer network.)

-Weirdness about Allen Steele writing HUNTING WABBIT in response to fanzine criticism, and the best way to annoy Allen Steele at SFF conventions

(2021 note: Call Steele Jonathan Frakes/ask for Frakes autograph or point behind him and yell "It's Steve Brown and he's GOT A GUN!")

-XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS the TV series continues to win over SFLers initially doubtful over it. The horniness factor for Lucy Lawless keeps coming up.

-I ASIMOV revealing that Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein loathed each other personally, but kept it professional and never discussed their personal views at SFF events.

-SFL Archives reviews of David Brin's BRIGHTNESS reef bringing up references to "van Dannikin-style cults" ??

-Heavy discussion of Nicola Griffith's AMMONITE and gender roles and sexuality, etc.

-What Happened to John Norman and the Gor Books? brings up that John Norman alleged had a No Editing clause on his books published by DAW Books up until new upper management came in at DAW Books.

-"The rastafarian who becomes a death machine by eating yogurt" in Bruce Sterling's ISLANDS IN THE NET.

-Absolutely no-one being able to predict the ending in Gene Wolfe's FREE LIVE FREE from it's opening chapters.

(2021 note: I have never read FREE LIVE FREE so the mention of it's ending involving "giant secret plywood propeller-driven airplanes that have been cruising around in the upper atmosphere since World War 2" sounds utterly insane.)

-An Iain Banks interview where Iain describes the inspiration for the title and plot of CONSIDER PHLEBLAS sounds amazing, but the original link at Iain Banks website shared to the SFL Archives is long-dead.

(2021 note: Think I found the interview:  https://synergetics.io/phlebas/text/banksint02.html )

"Phelbas is the drowned Phoenician sailor in T.S. Elliot's `The Waste Land' which is my favorite poem, if you exclude Shakespeare. Not that I like what Elliot stood for, but he was a genius and `The Waste Land' is his masterpiece. Well, his and Pound's, also of iffy political leanings. I just always like the words, `Consider Phlebas'. They looked good, they sounded good. They just looked like a title somehow. I tried all sorts of titles for the story before I settled on Consider Phelbas, but they all sounded too much like Star Wars. I knew it was a weird title but I though well, if it works it'll just become right for the book. I put in the bit about the sea-change - when Horza is undergoing a Calvin-like transmogrification on top of the crashed, awash shuttle - and in a sense, the whole book is just a yarn about a shipwrecked sailor who falls in with a gang of pirates and goes in search of buried treasure, so the quote-cum-title seemed to fit, and the idea was to hint at a tragic stature to Horza and at a kind of futility." 

-Possible hearsay about Fredric Brown allegedly typing a bunch of his stories on a Linotype machine versus a normal typewriter, because allegedly that's what he was most familiar with due to his early career as a Linotype typesetter.

-SFLers start discussing THE WITCHES OF KARRES stories, and no lie, the Witches of Karres books sounds like one of the rare mil-scifi story series that aged gracefully in the decades since they first came out.

-The Ted White edited issues of Amazing and Fantastic being house-fire disasters/massively entertaining.

(2021 note: I have no damn idea.)

-GODZILLA BATTLES GAMERA IN OSAKA which is a anecdote of the body-actors wearing the GODZILLA & GAMERA kaiju suits cage-fighting during a Osaka Expo convention around the time GODZILLA VS THE SMOG MONSTER came out.  

(2021 note: GAMERA came on strong but GODZILLA won...something about the Gamera kaiju suit being really damn heavy.)

-BucConeer convention aka "Baltimore WorldCon in 1998 Inc." officially becomes a 501c(3) non-profit educational organization.

-Something about D West's (SFF artist) HISTORY OF FANNISH ART article being so outrageous that LAGOON 7 (a fanzine) spent half it's space defending/explaining the HISTORY OF FANNISH ART article.

-Organizers of the ConCom 1995 convention issue a alert to be aware of the wording in your contracts with hotels hosting SFF conventions/SFF convention venues. Aim for "24 hour use", not "24 hour access" in your contracts. ConCom 1995 also had Filksong drama.

(2021 note: My hatred of filksong & filksong chat remains strong.)

-Being published by ZEBRA BOOKS apparently being a scarlett letter situation.

-Daniel Keys Moran and his always moving goalposts of bullshit excuses. As of September 1995, DKM claimed his latest novel, PLAYERS: THE AI WARS has 30 edit notes left and expects it to be published in 1996.

(2021 note: It took until 2011 for THE AI WARS part 1 to be self-published by DKM.)

Then later on when asked why EMERALD EYES, THE LONG RUN, and THE LAST DANCER haven't been reprinted by Bantam Spectra like he said they would be, DKM moves his bullshit excuse goalposts again to now claim that Bantam Spectra is waiting until they have THE AI WARS manuscript in-hand before doing reprints, and that his literary agent is waiting to hear back from Bantam Spectra.

(2021 note: Half expecting it to turn out that DKM's wife was also his literary agent in addition to her previous jobs as a Bantam Spectra talent scout/Bantam Spectra contract negotiator/Bantam Spectra book editor.)

SFL Archives Vol 16b readthrough update 01

100% completion, 149 bookmarks

-Movies & tv series mentioned: TERMINATOR 2, GREYSTOKE, NAKED GUN 2.5, HOOK, STAR TREK 6, ALIEN 3, ADDAMS FAMILY, HIGHLANDER 2, DISNEY BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN, THE ROCKETEER, CIRCUITRY MAN, SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, THE FISHER KING, EVIL DEAD 2, C.H.U.D., HARDWARE, HELLRAISER 3, CAST A DEADLY SPELL, BATMAN 2, SUPERMAN 4, SAPPHIRE AND STEEL, BLADERUNNER DIRECTORS CUT, THE BLUE LAGOON.

-Stories and books mentioned:  HALO, TEKLORDS, HERALDS OF VALDEMAR, BARDIC VOICES, MARTIAN RAINBOW, TEKLAB, LIFE DURING WARTIME, LOST ART, FOUCAULTS PENDELUM, THE TIME BENDER, THE WORLD SHUFFLER, MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN, KILLDOZER, PIGS IS PIGS, EYE OF ARGON, THE ROCKETEER, LOST CITY OF ZORK, THE GENERAL, BOOK OF EBON BINDINGS, SKYFALL, OUT ON BLUE SIX, DAMAINO, EARTH ABIDES, STAR ROVER, RAISING THE STONES, TRAVELS IN HYPERREALITY, A HISTORY OF SECRET SOCIETIES, THE NEGOTIATOR, GORD THE ROGUE, LUNAR DESCENT, GODEL ESCHER BACH: AN ETERNAL GOLDEN BOND, NEEDFUL THINGS, THE TROUBLE WITH LICHEN, MAN WHO AWOKE, THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE, IN PURSUIT OF VALIS, HARPY HIGH, CASTLE PERILOUS, RATS AND GARGOYLES.

-Pop culture references: Lily Marlene, Punxsutawny Phil, PostScript, Nanptechnology, Eye of Argon, Hayes 1200 smart-modems, Whole Earth Catalog, the BBC tape library archives purge, C.H.U.D., SKYNET, whoever the "Cabana Boys" are, ROM, SpaceKnight, Captain Jacks Rum, the SciFi Channels initial slate of scheduled programming, Paul Reubens masturbating in that movie theater, Madonna, the American tv series pilot of RED DWARF, the movie book option to 'THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE"

-Death notices: Gene Roddenberry.

-SFLer's from almost everywhere in the world are popping up. Japan, Australia, Africa, Europe, India, Turkey, Scotland, Germany, Mexico, Canada, Indonesia, navy.milnet, etc. 

-Repeated instances of public sex happening at TimeCon 1991, along with another extreme SF&F convention called EROTICON SIX, tailored to the BDSM enthusiast crowd. Keeping with this trend, discussion of SF Porn, and there is many examples I'm not going to re-transcribe here.

(2020 note: If you are curious to see what was mentioned, word search SFL Archives Volume 16B for "SFPorn".)

-Commentary on George O Smith's THE EARTH ABIDES features the very first time an author is called a Nazi, or an authors work is declared Aryan propaganda in SFL Archives history.

-The forgotten SF works of Jack London. 

-The details finally leak about how Jerry Pournelle lost his ARPANET access forever.

(2020 note: Pournelle lost his ARPANET access back in 1982 or 1983, and I wondered exactly how Pournelle lost his ARPANET access a few times earlier in my SFL Archives readthrough summaries.)

-Discussion of Umberto Eco's published stories, more specifically how to catch all the layered secret society references in Eco's FOUCAULTS PENDELUM.

-Michael Straczynski is noted as having been hired to write the pilot episode for a reboot of the 1980's "V" series.

(2020 note: The description of what happens in the JMS written pilot sounds a lot like what happened in seasons 2 & 3 of BABYLON 5.)

-How various SLFer's would go about designing SKYNET to make it work better and remove any possible pesky time-traveller hijinks.

-The beginning of TERMINATOR movie franchise dueling timelines discussion: Does Terminator 2 invalidate Terminator 1? How did the T-1000 travel back in time? Are the dates off? Does John Connor seem to old/too young for the dates GoodArnie recites to Dyson & Sarah Connor?

(2020 note: Thanks to the SFLers repeatedly mentioning organic sacks, sort of want to see a scene where the T-1000 travelled back in time inside a giant pumpkin. Which if you stretch things might result in a PEANUTS The Great Pumpkin/TERMINATOR franchise mashup that I would pay to see.)

-BLADERUNNER: DIRECTORS CUT discussion vs the original 1982 theatrical release. Various scenes been cut and added. SFLer's claiming it is Ridley Scotts final vision for the film. Mention is made of Mary, the All-American Mother Replicant.

-Everything terrible inside the Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle & Michael Flynn novel FALLEN ANGELS. Cannibal black people, slavery, global warming is fake, hero SF&F fandom saving everyone, evil treehuggers, hard men making hard calls, different versions of slavery, other libertarian things, etc. 

-SFLer's note that H Beam Piper's theft of Robert Heinlein's flat-cats in the H Beam Piper LITTLE FUZZY stories are not theft because according to Heinlein his "flat cats" are just Ellis Parker Butler's "dago pigs" with the serial numbers filed off.

-The before-before times for 1991 SFLers, when Isaac Asimov wasn't so openly pompous about himself in AISFM editorials and hadn't totally iced John W Campbell out on co-creation rights for the THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS. 

-Science Fiction stories of the 1920's, '30s, '40s, '50s being incomprehensible to modern 1990's readers due to dated references to vacuum tubes, physically cutting antennas, toggles, etc. On the same note, SFLer's start debating the merits of 1991 SF&F magazines, and none of the commentary makes sense to a 2020 reader.

(2020 note: Funnily, steampunk & maker communities mean that some of those long-dead technologies mentioned aren't so dead anymore. On the other hand, Analog magazine is dead? Asimov Magazine is dead, Amazing Stories is super-dead, Pulphouse is probably dead, etc.)

-The people of usenet group rec.arts.sf-lovers get tired of seeing messages posted from non-usenet users/the SF-LOVERS mailing list gateway onto rec.arts.sf-lovers, and vote to sever the two-way mirroring. The SFL Archives mailing list-moderator grudgingly disconnects the two-way link after months of delays, then re-enables a one-way gateway link on the down-low for "content/This mailing list moderator position gives me internet power" reasons

-The former co-heads of BOSKONE 25 Jim Mann & Laurie Mann become super-toxic about conventions when discussion about the voting for WorldCon 1994 comes up. Sadly conventions is all that Jim & Laurie Mann ever post about in the SFL Archives. Their toxicity comes from the Mann husband-wife adopting a "I see nothing negative. I hear nothing negative. I know nothing negative." towards their own preferred conventions/friends conventions, but then proceed to drag up dirt regarding competitors conventions.

-A resurgence of Marion Zimmer Bradley discussion.

-STAR TREK 6 went over well with most of the SFL. The main cast of TOS seeming to act out of character, wonky special effects, design spec changes of the Enterprise, those damn gravity boots from ST5 appearing, Kim Cattrall's character not having a standardized Vulcan name, Michael Dorf & Christian Slater cameo appearances, how TNG series canon effects ST6/how ST6 effects TNG series canon, etc. 

 George Takei's 15 minutes of screen-time as Captain of a non-Enterprise spaceship had many vocal SFLer's hoping for the adventures of Captain Sulu (while sidelining or preferably killing Kirk) in a possible Captain Sulu spinoff tv-series.

-Raymond Feist ripping off the TEKUMEL setting comes up again repeatedly. The same person from SFL Archives 1987 & 1990? is back making the same "I have a document with 300 points of similarity between Tekumel & Feist's Riftwar books". Stuff like metal poorness, laquered armors, identically described lizardous subraces, city names, geography, etc. A few SFLer's make the claim that Feist wasn't ripping off Tekumel directly, Feist was merely stealing the setting/characters/plotlines of the homebrew RPG campaign of  a un-named GameMaster that Feist had a character in...and that the un-named GameMaster running the homebrew RPG campaign was the person with the all Tekumel/D&D/Tunnels & Trolls sourcebooks, not Raymond Feist. 

(2020 note: I really don't care what the true background behind Riftwar is. Many SF&F authors have based some of their works off of other authors or sometimes incorporate one or two interesting tidbits from RPG sourcebooks. It's the wholesale copying without acknowledgement that bothers me, especially if Feist ripped off the work of a un-named GM for 10+ books)

-First mention of R.A. Salvatore in the SFL Archives, along with the rumor that Salvatore also writes under a pen-name.

(2020 note: I have no idea, and refuse to look this up. Want to say that R.A. Salvatore has released roughly 40 books since the 1990's, so if he was also writing under a pen-name too, that is impressive output.)

-PRESERVE YOUR SOFTWARE AT ALL COSTS. THE REST IS MEAT. vs PRESERVE YOUR HARDWARE AT ALL COSTS. THE REST IS NOISE. 

-A advertisement for CONFLAGRATION 1992, a convention catered towards SF pornography and so much more.

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

Date: 10 Aug 91 18:24:32 GMT

From: davep@milton.u.washington.edu (David Ptasnik)

Subject: CONFLAGRATION ChiCon Room Party

Everyone is invited to the CONFLAGRATION room party at ChiCon.  Look for

our signs for the day, time, and room number at the Hyatt!

                                      

       CONFLAGRATION

The Convention Your MAMA Warned You About

  UNDER 21 NOT ADMITTED!

      June 19, 20, 21

   1992

     Alderbrook Resort

     Union, Washington

Guest of Honor

ANDREW J.  OFFUTT

Creator of "Shadowspawn"

Author of "Conan" Novels

Author Guest

VICKI MITCHELL

Star Trek Novel "Enemy Unseen"

Artist Guest

PHIL FOGLIO

Hugo Award Winner

Fan Guest

JOY DAY

Costumer Extraordinaire

Master of Ceremonies

JON GUSTAFSON

Professional SF Art Appraiser & Expert

Special Appearance By

JOHN CLEVE

"Spaceways"and "The Crusader" sagas

JUICY PANELS

JUICIER FILMS

FILTHY FILKING

WEENIE ROAST

MASQUERADE

BONFIRES

DEALERS

GAMING

ARCADE

BhEER

WhINE

ORGAzMS

HOSPITALITY

PARTY COTTAGES

UNCENSORED ART SHOW

SATURDAY NITE ART AUCTION

BEACH SIDE RESORT

OUTDOOR FUN

INDOOR POOL

JACUZZI

TENNIS

FISHING

SAILING

GOLF

No one under 21 will be admitted to the Northwest's ONLY

Adult Science Fiction Convention.

IS THAT A SPACESHIP IN YOUR POCKET,

OR ARE YOU JUST THINKING ABOUT CONFLAGRATION?

For something new and fresh in a Fantasy and Science Fiction Convention, we

cordially invite you to attend CONFLAGRATION in June of '92.  Our

convention will be an SF and Fantasy convention with traditional panel

discussions and activities, famous people to talk to and learn from, and a

whole bunch of outdoor fun at a gorgeous waterfront resort.  CONFLAGRATION

will include adult themes, and will be restricted to adults over 21 (photo

ID at the door, please).  We think you will really enjoy the opportunity of

taking a weekend off at one of the nicest getaway spots in the Northwest.

Plus you will be able to do it in the company of people who understand and

share an important aspect of all of our lives: fandom.  Enjoy every aspect

of SF and Fantasy without having to look over your shoulder for fear of

offending a mundane, or setting off a riot among the kids.  Register early,

we could be sold out before the convention.

Dave and Cindy Ptasnik, co-chairs

HERE ARE THE SORDID DETAILS -

FEEL THE HEAT:

At the Alderbrook Resort on the breathtakingly beautiful Hood Canal.  The

entire resort will be ours!  No kids, no mundanes, no inhibitions.

Sleeping bags and extra towels OK'd by the resort.  For reservations call

1-800-622-9370.

A credit card or personal check will guarantee reservations.

About 1 1/2 hours from Seattle in Union, WA.

About 2 1/2 hours from Portland.

Canadians use those kilometer thingies, and nobody knows how far anything

is from there.  This is a very nice (AAA recommended) facility.  Virtually

every room and cottage has an amazing territorial view of mountains, water,

and forest.  2nd and 3rd floor rooms all have balconies.  Ground floor

rooms are wheelchair accessible.  Some rooms are designed for use by the

differently abled.

SUBMISSIVE BEHAVIOR:

The staff at the Alderbrook Resort has had it's collective passion enflamed

by our coming.  They haven't had this much fun since the transvestite

convention.  Costumes are encouraged in all resort areas, including the

restaurant and lounge.  They even seemed to pant a little at the thought of

well armed virtually naked barbarians.  Small pets (no, a sheep is not a

small pet) are welcome with some conditions (ask the resort).

FOREPLAY:

Registration will be strictly limited to 350 (um) members.  Please register

under your legal name, you may also provide a badge name.  Info:

CONFLAGRATION

12345 Lake City Way

Suite 2001

Seattle, WA  98125

1-800-989-2001

206-527-2001 (Canada and Seattle area)

Please send SASE for return correspondence, there will be progress reports.

PROS:

They do it for money AND satisfaction!

Andrew J. Offutt is the finest, funniest, and downright steamiest author we

have ever encountered at a con.  From his Conan novels to Shadowspawn of

Thieves' World, Uncle Andy is the master of lurid Heroic Fantasy.  His

readings are an absolute must-hear.  The ladies will swoon over his sexy

soft drawl.

Vicki Mitchell is the hottest new best-selling author in the region, and a

true veteran of Star Trek warfare.  Meet this rising star, and learn how to

work with publishers and studios.

Phil Foglio, a recent transplant from the Midwest, is the illustrator of

the M.Y.T.H. Adventure series, and creator of Xenophile (the only explicit

American comic published in Sweden).  Let's give the author of Buck Godot a

warm (maybe even cozy) Northwest welcome.

Joy Day is one of the best costumers and most dedicated fans around.  She

has won countless masquerades nationwide, as well as a major award at a

WorldCon.

Jon Gustafson is the only professional appraiser of SF and Fantasy Art.

His knowledge is encyclopedic, which explains why he wrote the artist

biographies for The Doubleday Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

John Cleve will make a special appearance to discuss sex and science

fiction.  The author of Spaceways (the red hot 19 volume series of Playboy

books) and the positively lustful five volume Crusader epic will light your

fire.

Are you a Pro?

Drop us a line, we would love to have you participate in CONFLAGRATION.

VENUS BUTTERFLY:

Not even the National Endowment for the Arts would fund this Art Show and

Auction.  Libidinous contributions will be solicited from the finest

artists in the nation.  (The sculptures ought to be particularly

interesting.)  Bring your wallets for this one, we are encouraging artists

to send originals.  Even better, we will be holding the Art Auction on

Saturday Night.  If you don't get your first choice at auction, we will

have special Sunday Sale prices to let you fulfill your flaming desire for

the real thing, original art.

Artists: Give it to us straight, we can take it.  Unchain your wildest

fantasies for this uncensored presentation.  Show us how well you are hung.

Call or write for a copy of our art show guidelines.

BAZAAR OF ALL EARTHLY DELIGHTS:

Where Anything may be for sale.  Our dealer room will have a limited

number of tables specially selected for your Every Need or Desire

(Batteries not included).

Dealers:  send a description (or better yet a dirty picture) of your

goodies.  6' x 2.5' tables will be $10 each, membership(s) purchased

separately.  We will give a preference to theme appropriate wares, and

will try to balance our selection of merchants.  If you are not

selected, your money will be promptly refunded.

WATER SPORTS:

Wet and wild.  Sailboats, paddle boats, inner tubes, water ski tows, crab

pots, fishing gear and more will be available on the Resort's 80 foot

(that's a big one) dock.  Salt water swimming in a large roped off area

and beachcombing are free.

TALK DIRTY TO ME:

. . . in the panel rooms.  Try the panel on kissing techniques, or how to

get a bust in the mouth.  After all, that's what you're really after at

these things, right? (Hey you, with the pocket protector, stop that!).

It's guaranteed to get pretty steamy.

THERE'S A VOYEUR IN THE FOYEUR:

If you like to watch, come to the video room.  Flesh Gordon is just the

beginning.  You won't see this stuff on the Disney Channel.

THE WET SPOT:

Don't avoid this one - a HUGE indoor pool in its own building.  There is

even a jacuzzi that sits 22 (or more) friendly people.  The management

requires that something be worn at all times in the pool, like, say, a

wristwatch or earrings.  There will be a special swim for overweight

people, we can be rather shy around you skinny types.  Bring your best for

the Outrageous Inflatable Pool Toy Competition (Now where did we put those

Love Ewes?).

SHOW AND TELL:

Create your wildest costume ever for our red hot Masquerade!  No lip

synching.  No pre-judging.  No censorship.  Let your conscience be your

guide (do whatever it says you shouldn't).  Bribing the judges is

encouraged.  Awards will be given for Hottest of Show, Hottest SF, Hottest

Fantasy, Most Provocative, Most Humorous, and Least (that's right, just

Least).

ORGY CENTRAL:

Gamers do it in groups.  The festivities will be indoors and outdoors (at

last gaming comes out of the closet).  Scandalous Scavenger Hunt (it's not

OK for the ribbed condom to have been used); Clothing Optional Volleyball

(just kidding); Explicit Role-Playing tournament; Jello Snarffuling (it

sounds just as disgusting as it sounds).

GROUP GROPE:

Sex, er, uh, six cottages have been specially set aside for room parties.

If you plan to have such a party, please request one of these cottages when

making your reservation.

CLIMAX ROOM:

Our hospitality cottage will be an ultimate delight of sinful pleasure.

Chips, dips, BhEER, WhINE, PB & J (not on the sheets, please), coffee,

popcorn, candy, cake, soda pop, and munch, munch more.  We'll even have

REAL food.  Join us at our complimentary BONFIRE AND WEENIE ROAST on Friday

Night!  (Talk about oral gratification.)  Oh yeah, and our own signature

drink, The Orgazm.  We hope you will find this the most hospitable offering

on the convention circuit, with longer hours, and more good stuff all the

time.  There will be no "kitty" begging for Hospitality Suite donations.

You've already paid for the food and drink by registering.  Take your

smoking outside, that's for after the climax.

SEE YOU THERE!!!!!!!!!

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

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 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 11 readthrough update 09

 74% completion, 121 bookmarks

Not much visible progress. All the things I had previously bookmarked in Vol 11 but not mentioned before are finally listed. Was able to delete about 90 bookmarks that were duplicates of earlier bookmarks/gibberish phrases/heinlein defense squad posts/clearly stdh.txt material.

-What would be considered "normal not weird gibberish" email addresses start to appear from the BBN & Xerox arpanet nodes. (2020 note: BBN & Xerox were respectively responsible for designing slash building the Arpanet and Ethernet networking).

-Dennis McKiernan explains why his MITHGAR setting exists. (2020 note: McKiernan's explaination give background on why LORD OF THE RINGS knockoffs started appearing everywhere in the 1980's.)

-SFLer's really do not like Vonda McIntyre's novel ENTERPRISE: THE FIRST ADVENTURE. Timelines in it versus the tv-show are off, with McIntyre ignoring lots of fan-canon factoids in favor of fleshing out Yeoman Rand as the main viewpoint character of the book.

-It is pointed out that one of the main characters in Michael Moorcock's ETERNAL CHAMPION mythos is directly pulled/stolen/borrowed from a series of children's books written by E. Nesbit around 1900-ish.

-WorldCon 1986 program item "The Forgery of Mike Jittlov's Autograph" was scheduled but never happened, and a SFLer wants to know what the deal is with the forgery + autograph. 

-The BEASTMASTER movie starring Marc Singer vs Andre Norton's similarly titled book comes up again for the 30th time. No they are completely different, and Norton got no settlement money ala Harlan Ellison/Ben Bova/AE Van Vogt.  (2020 note: Marc Singer was the 1980's version of Chris Hemsworth).

-One SFLer makes the case for Edgar Rice Burroughs literally stealing the Mars/Barsoom setting  from Edwin L. Arnold. Books that did Barsoom before ERB are GULLIVER OF MARS and PHRA THE PHOENICIAN. 

-An SFLer complains that Isaac Asimov has been dumbing down his science columns for over a decade, and now it appears pitched at twelve-year olds and says (direct quote): "How many twelve-year-old's read F&SF, I wonder?"

(2020 note: Going from the F&SF threads on the SomethingAwful forums, the answer: MANY OF THEM. MANY MANY MANY twelve-year-old's read F&SF.) 

-Michael Moorcock being heavily connected to the band HAWKWIND and co-writing some of the lyrics of BLUE OYSTER CULT songs came up a few times.

-After being discussed at least 60 times in earlier SFL Archives Volumes, I finally get around to mentioning Sherri Tepper, mostly because Tepper's book DERVISH DAUGHTER finishes off a trilogy and has gotten mostly favorable SFL feedback

-A detailed walkthrough of the 1986 Doctor Who Experience USA Tour. 

(2020 note: It sounded pretty cool, and very good value for $2 in 1986 money, especially since the money the tour raised was allegedly going to local NPR stations.)

-Jim Baen responds to negative feedback about the BAEN BOOK CLUB deal mentioned in a earlier readthrough post. The Book Club deal was always was a limited 6-9 month trial, everything under that Baen Book Club deal was being sold at a loss by Baen Books, and it had a maximum member limit of 500, etc.

-The saga of the SF-LOVERS t-shirts is now complete or almost complete. The person who ran the project is discussing the packing methods/amount of t-shirt orders and all I can see in my mind is ebay sellers of the 21st century going "<snide tone>lightweight".

-Pierre Boulle's lesser known stories comes up. Stories about medical detective work to fight disease are always interesting, especially circa 2020 + COVID19.

-A technology focused SFLer talks about "gravity gradient stabilization" technology being used in space probes and satellites orbiting the earth.  (2020 note: This is definitely on my "look this up" list.) 

-An old SF fan chimes in about SF radio programs from the late 1940's and early 1950's they remember, wonders if anyone else remembers them.

-Don Woods, creator of COLOSSAL CAVE ADVENTURE is unable to find the 2 missing pages in a rumored notoriously bad reprint of Harlan Ellison's PERSISTENCE OF VISION that he owns.

(2020 note: This is Dad-joke funny because Persistence of Vision...being unable to see anything missing.....?!)

-Japanese Kajiu movies start getting discussed, with mentions of international releases adding in extra actors.

-More weird fantasy and SciFi tv-series and movies of the 1950's-1970's:

I Married A Witch

Science Fiction Theater

Commander Cody

Captain Midnight aka Jet Jackson

Flash Gordon

The Man and the Challenge

Way Out

World of Giants

Men Into Space

Far Out Space Nuts

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 08

 70% completion, 208 bookmarks

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

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

The Immortals

Mr Terrific

Captain Nice

Astro-Boy

Giganor

The 8th Man

Speed Racer

Sheriff John

Space Cadet

Clutch Cargo

Colonel Bleep

Space Ghost

Marine Boy

Star Blazers

Stingray

Ultraman

Avengers

It's About Time

Space Cruiser Yamato

Tom Terrific

My Living Doll

Gerald Mc BoingBoing

Crusader Rabbit

Time Tunnel

Dark Shadows

Ultraman

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Land of the Lost 

The Invaders

Star Maidens 

U.F.O.

Matthew Star

Prince Planet

Dark Shadows

Star Prince

LIST OF OLD SF TV SHOWS/Movies ENDS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

SFL Archives Vol 11 readthrough update 06

 54% completion, 152 bookmarks

-1986 TUCKER AWARDS email clarification comes out. 3 awards: 1 each for SF Professional (writer, editor, or dealer), SF Artist, and SF Fan. 4 people are nominated for each award. VOTING DEADLINE IS 1 NOVEMBER 1986

(2020 note: The 1986 Tucker Award looks to be rigged Hugo Award and Nebula Award style. Surely the 2 people nominated with the last name of Tucker [sarcasm]are there by random chance and not nepotism[/sarcasm]) 

-20th Century Fox is in talks with Paramount Studios to develop and create a new STAR TREK tv-series. SFLer reactions to this news-leak range from excited to doubtful and then to extremely angry. The extremely angry SFlers use the STAR TREK 1 & STAR TREK 3 movies as examples of new Star Trek characters being introduced just to kill them off 40 minutes later.

-Besides (*wink* possibly *wink*) working on a new STAR TREK tv-series, in 1986 ..."20th Century Fox appears to be trying to start a 4th nationwide TV Network. (Ted Turner is too apparently)" . 

-The many SciFi & Fantasy writers that post on the SF-LOVERS mailing list are trying to get a informal writers group going to exchange and critique SF&F stories. Robert J Sawyer chooses to self-doxx himself  2nding the informal writers group idea, and then doxxes a few other incognito SF-LOVERS SF&F writers just for the hell of it.

-Tolkienian debate continues. This time elf reincarnation vs what orcs, dwarves and humans get when they die. More Maiar debates. What happened to Saruman and Sauron after their "deaths" in Return of the King. One of the bigger Tolkenian lore arguers obviously read "death of the author" and now thinks they are deploying secret unbeatable arguments from it to support their hyper-stupid "JRR Tolkien merely translated LotR and is not the original source of it, therefore everything I say re: Tolkienian lore makes sense".

-Lloyd Biggle Jr's SILENCE IS DEADLY, originally mentioned back in SFL Archives Vol 03 or Vol 04 comes up again. 

(2020 note: Repeating this almost verbatim from my 1981 SFL recaps...One of the low-notes of the SFL Archives readthrough was the nasty reaction back in 1981 when deaf SciFi fans made pleas for finding "deaf-friendly fiction" and help tracking down transcriptions of the HitchHiker Guide to the Galaxy BBC Radio broadcasts

Hearing disabled Scifi stories were rare as hell in the 1980's, and probably remain rare as hell now-ish. 2020 people: Please, please disprove me on this. I want to be wrong.)

- I, MARTHA ADAMS by Pauline Glen Winslow. "America has become complacent & surrenders to the Russians after they destroy certain military bases.  One woman fights back.  This book has good ingredients for a movie - pyrotechnics, politics, bad guys beating upon good guys, suspense, and sex.  Oh, yes, let us not forget a strong female lead". 

(2020 note: I have no idea. It sounds terrible in a uniquely libertarian feminist survivalist way.)

-Steve Perry's Matador trilogy (THE MAN WHO NEVER MISSED, MATADORA, THE MACHIAVELLI INTERFACE) comes up, and it is a "martial artist revolutionary takes on an evil empire" space opera mish-mash. 

-GENERAL TECHNICS, "the organization for science fiction fans with an interest in do-it-yourself technology, will be held Friday morning, 29 August 1986, at 10 AM, Constellation in Atlanta." 

-ALIENS 1986 movie chat kicks off big-time. A few SFLers are fascinated by the life-cycle of the Alien xenomorphs, others nitpick the travel time of the USS Sulaco (the SpaceMarines spaceship) vs Ripley's drifting lifepod, which of the survivors possibly got impregnated with Alien zygotes, and how did Ripley not get blown out of the airlock/close that airlock near the end of Aliens 1986, etc.

-Someone asks for erotic SF favorites, and Hank Buurman, the SFLer who doesn't believe in privacy for others, fervently recommends John Varley's Millenium and Titan series for the weird erotic sex scenes in them.

-Gene Wolfe at the 1986 ARCHON SFCon tells people the 5th BotNS book is almost ready, the effort Wolfe puts into finding the right word to evoke the nuances he wants, and that there is two mistakes he knows of in the first 4 BotNS volumes; a proofreader missing a typo resulting in <Artello> instead of <Martello> and one obscure mistake Gene Wolfe doubts anyone else will find.

-Chesley Bonestell, a longtime SciFi cover artist dies in 1986 and a SFL writes a mini-memorial about their work in Scifi and as a normal special effects artist working on movies like CITIZEN KANE and DESTINATION MOON.

 -Chris Foss's science fiction artwork gets mentioned. Besides Foss's better known work painting spaceship cover art, 1986 SFLers think it's amusing that Chris Foss did the artwork for the Joy of Sex.

-SFLer WorldCon parties get mentioned, with  '@!%'  on posters/signs being the secret code SFLers used to self-identify themselves to people in the know. Worldcon SFLer parties have come up before, because I distinctly remember a "Would whoever grabbed the cables I used to hookup the portable computer-terminal at last week's Worldcon, please return them to me" happening at least once.

-SFLer confusion over what SILENT RUNNING other SFLer's keep referencing. Are they referring to the Mike & the Mechanics song "Silent Running"?  Or are they referencing the 1977 movie Silent Running? Or are people conflating the two? (2020 note: Yes. Yes. And Yes.)

-Laserdisc's being bleeding edge technology circa 1986. 

-SFLer Craig Wheeler cuts the bull and directly promotes his upcoming novel THE KRONE EXPERIMENT, due out October 1986.

SFL Archives Vol 08 readthrough update 01

 -The SFL person that melted down ultra-hard over WARGAMES 1983 (back in SFL Digest Vol 07) first post in the SFL Digest Vol 08 continued to angrily shit-talk Wargames 1983 then switched to a classic "hahaha I was puppet-mastering you all hahaha" defense all in that first SFL Vol 08 post. Status: Still hyper-mad about Wargames 1983, and is angrily requesting anyone that doesn't have the same views about Wargames 1983 as them to "redirect this discussion to POL-SCI, please!" (usenet). 

(2020 sidenote: Broke a unwritten rule I have to not-google-search doing this SFL readthrough and looked this person up IRL. Their Wargames 1983 meltdown was just the first stages of them getting contrarian, bitter and angry about the '80s and the internet not evolving how they expected/wanted. )

-Normal not-angry discussions about WARGAMES 1983 continued the jokes and references to BURGER KING sponsoring Wargames 1983. Along with wonderment/lust at all the expensive gear MattBroderick had in-movie, and plotpoints that didn't make quite make sense (buying the plane tickets, why entering NORAD base a certain way if everything was so critical, etc). For explanation about the Burger King thing, the war computers name in the movie is WOPR which sounds a whole lot like Whopper when pronounced. Burger King, Whopper.....get it?

-Yet another another scifi author revealed themselves to defend the collective wisdom of SFWA members re: award nominations or not. I don't bookmark the author self-doxxes in SFL archive so maybe it was a previously self-doxxed author posting.

-The 1983 version of being terminally online: your sig file contains multiple USENET server paths+USENET handle, along with a CSNet email address, AND a ARPANET email address

-one of the first mentions of MUDs in the SFL. A request for people to create scenarios + storylines for a post-apoc MUD centering around DAYTON, OHIO. Look this up yourself, keywords: SMAUG Rutgers

-A 2nd request by Robert Forward for CAD artwork assistance in ROCHEWORLD.

-SFL discussion of James P Hogan's THE GENESIS MACHINE sort of makes John Ringo's writing and mary-sue main characters look subtle and restrained. Or maybe James P Hogan was a major influence in Ringo's work.
https://youtu.be/vgk-lA12FBk

-A humorous or not-humorous attempt to poison the well for a 1985 WorldCon hosting bid gets mentioned or is it just a texan tall tale? This story contains many Texas stereotypes so any AYES OF TEXAS megafans or/and Texas residents should pre-emptively calm the f**k down. 

-only mentioning a SCA recruitment ad that hypes up the allure of LARP combat because it contains the perfect synergy of "beating the cream" and GOR.

quote:

From: REDACTED.DETCADER at DETCADER
Subject: SCA
The SCA does not limit itself to any specific time period, it is
simply that most of the members are into the Middle Ages. The choice
of persona and interest is completly up to each person. If more
people who are interested in Tokagawa Japan or other periods would
join the SCA then it would become more generalized, more anacronistic
than it presently is. I am a member of a splinter group associated
with them known as the Tuchux. We are roughly based on the Tuchucks
of the Gor series, and the early German tribes of the pre-Roman Empire
times. This is not the Middle Ages. The best way to generate
interest in different periods is to join the SCA and try to generate
it yourself instead of waiting for others to do it. That is how the
Tuchux evolved and became one of the most feared forces in SCA
military campaigns. At last years War between the East and Middle
Kingdoms the Tuchux were the deciding factor in every battle and were
awarded the War Banner. There were only 60 of us too, but we cowed
hundreds and beat the cream of the fighters of both kingdoms. But
enough rambling the point was that you should join the SCA and try to
build a group suited to your tastes and maybe succeed like us. Somday
maybe I will meet a group of Tokagawa Samurai on the battle field, I
will of course slay them but it would be interesting.

originally posted between July 26th -July 31st in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3