SFL Archives Vol 13 readthrough update 03

 60% completion, 130 bookmarks

1988 technology level: information from the internet about the upcoming WorldCon 1990 involving BITNET, and data being sent in NETDATA format, with IBM & VAX users needing an additional step to get & read the Worldcon 1990 data.

-A bunch of SFL Archives posters reveal their fetish for pregnancy stories, more specificly the many many science-fiction themed takes on the impregnation of Mary by God and the birth of Jesus in science-fiction stories. 

-Someone makes the strong case for Michael Moorcock being directly responsible for the British NEW WAVE of scifi/fantasy stories & authors thanks to Moorcock. 

(2020 note: That indirectly means Michael Moorcock is responsible for Brian Aldiss existing, god damn you Michael Moorcock for that. Brian Aldiss is one of my least favorite editor-authors that held so much power in the fantasy & scifi fields despite having such little talent)

-STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION chat died off immediately after the first 5 episodes. Tasha Yar dying caused 4 or so WTF email-posts. Then the Conspiracy episode aired and about 7 people posted about how unexpected gory the ending was.

-A whole lot of Drama about the 1988 Hugo Award "Other Forms" category kicked off by the SFWA white-knight SFLer.

(2020 note: The SFWA obsessed white-knight SFLer has done more to turn me off the SFWA & Hugo Awards than everything else I've read or previously encountered.

-BATTLEFIELD EARTH book discussion & mild chat about the weirdness surrounding L Ron Hubbard's life and published stories.

-Joining the Friends of Highgate Cemetary to be able to tour/visit the un-maintained sections of Highgate Cemetary that are 110% off-limits to public access.

-The April-June 1988 take on Robert Heinlein is "Are Heinlein's stories pornography?", which drives the Heinlein Defense Squad into overdrive defense mode. The SFWA white-knight mentions that Robert Heinlein is ill in early April 1988, and asks people to funnel all donations/get well letters/gift cards they might send to through him for some reason.

-Filk Song publisher drama that I refuse to recap.

-Official notice to the SFL Archives of a new mailing list slash usenet group dedicated to all things SOCIETY for CREATIVE ANACHRONISM 

-A possible apocryphal story about how Glenn Cook got a fantasy-scifi cover artists professional career started. Also, as of April 1988, someone claims that Frank Frazetta is terminally ill and unable to work.

-The James Tiptree Jr. posing as a man posing as a woman posing as a man posing as a woman posing as a man April Fools 1988 joke-post someone posted to the SF-LOVERS was a bridge too far and close for a bunch of SFLers given that the author had committed suicide within the past year. 

-Another SFLer lamented about 1988's crop of April Fools posts didn't live up to previous years jokes. Special mention was made of the the new arpanet node 'kremvax' joke from a few years back originally posted in another mailing list/usenet group. 

(2020 note: This joke requires some clarification. It implied that the Kremlin/USSR had gotten a VAX system hooked up to the ARPANET and was trawling for information, while the USA/USSR Cold War was still happening.)

-William Gibson's MONA LISA OVERDRIVE comes out, and Gibson fans are pleased mostly.

-The FUSE-BOX DWARF, a throwaway gag by John Bellairs

-Early career mentions of Kevin J Anderson & Neil Gaiman, showing me yet again how long certain fantasy/scifi writers have been around for.

-A story track-down request for something called Combat Football brings up lots of possible stories, and sounds a whole lot like what MUTANT LEAGUE FOOTBALL would be about 5 years in the future.

-Death notices for Clifford Simak & Robert Anson Heinlein. 

-A listing of stories & books about immortality includes the weird side note about one of the symbols of longevity in Korean myth & Korean folklore being a mushroom called "pulloch'o" that doesn't exist in the reality that humankind experiences. 

-The death notice for Robert Anson Heinlein allowed the Heinlein Defense Squad to shout-down all criticism of Heinlein under the "how dare you insult this recently dead man/visionary of SF?", and the Heinlein Defense Squad people have been using the criticism-free time to theory-craft/crowdsource bulletproof reasons why Heinlein's incest fetish and Heinlein's views on consent and sexual relationship dynamics aren't creepy and horrifying to people who didn't grow up reading Heinlein stories like the HDS did.

-Unusual SFLer story requests: A request for "stories with friendly dragons" and a request for "fantasy fiction without Quest elements" in them.

-Pre-announcement of BOSKONE 26 reveals that BOSKONE is stuck in Springfield MA for 1989 after burning all its bridges with hotels/convention centers in Boston, and sticking with a hard attendence limit of 2000 people.

-The SFL Archives "How would you design a Superman" discusion goes into various uber-person physical specs, then verves off course into redesigning pelvic bones, the cranial capacity of newborns, cloning, and mindstate snapshots/mindstate restoration in that order.

-WILLOW & BEETLEJUICE are the major Fantasy movies that have come out recently in spring 1988. Most of the SFLer's posting about WILLOW keep bringing up the Siskbert/Kael naming as take-thats to criticss, while BEETLEJUICE mostly gets ignored, except by the resident reviewer-idiot who hates it.

-Isaac Asimov branded limited theater release movies NIGHTFALL and LIGHT YEARS make it to theaters/tv, and are universally panned by every SFLer who saw them. Also, the tv miniseries SOMETHING IS OUT THERE airs on NBC, and just about SFLer who watched it takes great delight in figuratively tearing the miniseries apart.  

-Harlan Ellison chat makes a resurgence, with comments of the LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS collection STILL being in the works as of 1988, and Ellison working/not working on it. Additional items of Ellison being a thin-skinned ass at conventions towards competitors and sexual assaulting women come up. David Brin comes up as being universally terrible towards women at conventions, joining Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov as people you never want to be alone with if you are a female.   

-Someone finally points out all the poorly written characters and terrible science and nonsense plot that doesn't make sense in Robert Forward's ROCHEWORLD

SFL Archives Vol 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 03

 Certain topics have cropped up again and again periodically in the SFL Archives read-through.

 Larry Niven's KNOWN SPACE/DOWN IN FLAMES, matter transportation, filkchat, childrens tv shows, etc..luckily each time the discussion on <reoccuring-subject> has focused on something new rather than rehashing old-arguments.

-Relative newcomer to the book publishing field BAEN BOOKS (established 1983) is getting referenced more and more.

-V the series. SFLers still can't get over why the Visitor's came to Earth for H20 aka water when water is freely available in so many other places. 

(2020 take: Replacing water with biologicals would have worked better. Think of how coffee plants originally only grew in South America, or how tasty spices mostly grew in the tropics, and the Mace/Nutmeg spice island being traded 1:1 for the city-island New Amsterdam aka New York City. Now make that intergalactic, and the Visitors are coming for this rare delicacy called "potatoes" or "crab-apples".)

-Sometime in late 1985 Samuel Delany's DHALGREN starts being used a test for the top tier of SFF fandom or "fendom" (a mispelling of fans/fandom which SFF fans adopted similar to "filksongs")

(2020 sidenote: Everyone involved in filksongs, I hate you. Entirely.)

essentially the Dhalgren test is:
If you managed to read Dhalgren completely and like it, you pass the test. -Samuel Delany megafans.
If you think Dhalgren is overblown and/or garbage, f**k you you goddamn fake fen -also Samuel Delany megafans.

(2020 Sidenote: Someone in the SFL Archives stated that Samuel R Delany circa the 1980s had multiple health issues ranging from no short term memory, epilepsy, seizures, [sarcasm]Assassins Creed Eagle Sense, the power to turn water into mead[/sarcasm], etc. Contributing to why Delany's writing and stories do not follow normal storytelling conventions, and why they found Delany so inspiring.
How much of that (outside of my sarcasm tags) was bullshit or real? I don't really follow Samuel R Delany because he creeps me out hard on a "acclaimed French Writer Gabriel Matzneff" level. )

-BRIDGE OF BIRDS gets mentioned for the first time in SFL archives as well as similar themed stories

-Someone in late 1985 mentions a bunch of "intelligent dolphin" stories that aren't David Brin's Uplift setting and wants more. DolphinF**ker is inexplicably not the author of those posts.

-Matter transportation comes back as a topic of discussion in late 1985, but focuses on souls/who is the original in 1985 vs the earlier "how do they transmit all that data" and "how do they *STORE* all that data" debates.

-The 1985 version o KNOWN SPACE/DOWN IN FLAMES discussion focuses on how Larry Niven's Protector book syncs up with the rest of the Known Space series and the Ringworld. lots of interesting ideas and theories that Niven will never deal with sadly.

-A throw-away reference to female fans being advised to avoid Isaac Asimov if encountered alone at scifi-conventions

-BACK TO THE FUTURE 1 came out in July 1985, and discussion about time-line split-offs with Marty 1 timeline, Marty 1955 timelines, and who goes where/who gets replaced kicks off. Definitely seen identical arguments on this same subject on SA threads.

-November 5th being a frequent "go to/execute/the movie happens now" date for time travel stories comes up and never gets resolved (so far)

-Author nepotism, SFL authors dissing other SFL authors, SFL authors arguing about Hugo & Nebula awards, more author self-doxxes

-Book publisher f**kery part 36: publishers f**king up basic things like getting the authors name spelled correctly (or listed at all!), and f**king up the book title on book spines/title pages on 1st printing runs

-The 2nd hand story of how Jerry Pournelle lost his guest account arpanet access. Pournelle did *something* and "refuses to suck up to the post-grad" managing the ARPANET node to get his ARPANET guest account back.

-Reminisces about Theodore Sturgeon's career brought up the cringy-amusing time a fan invoked STURGEON'S LAW at Theodore Sturgeon during a SciFi convention panel by directly quoting excerpts from some of Sturgeon's crappier stories at him.

-Part two of people asking how to get in contact with authors. This time some of the self-avowed/self-doxxed SFL authors respond back on the best methods to do so(contact publishing company/ask a research desk librarian). Think I skipped mentioned part one which happened circa 1982? because back then it was clear the people asking weren't satisfied with merely sending letters, they wanted direct no limits one on one access.

originally posted August 27th - September 2nd in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 

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

SFL Archives Vol 08 readthrough update 02

 -Reading the SFL archives chat about SUNDIVER and STARTIDE RISING has softened my views on David Brin. The David Brin of 37 yrs/30 yrs/20 years ago is not the bitter boomer CHUD David Brin of 2019, clever and tolerant David Brin died off over a decade ago.

David Brin's Uplift universe stories are worth reading for the galactic species and Interstellar Universal Library concept in them. For a 2020 reader new to David Brin's Uplift stories, yes there is awkward interspecies sex scenes in each of the Uplift books that can/probably should be skipped over.. ....always skip the awkward interspecies sex scenes/sexual harassment scenes in Brin's Uplift universe stories. What's that?...... *high pitched clicking and squeaking*....... DolphinF**ker heavily disagrees with that last statement.

-first book of Roger Zelazny's new AMBER series gets teased for a 1984 release. Looking back at Zelazny's earlier Amber stories,and the wholesale stealing from Philip Jose Farmer's earlier series, am now thinking that the obvious "written for the money" Amber books mostly exist, ironically, as a way for Zelazny to pay off PJF and confuse people into thinking PJF ripped off Zelazny...which then leads to owing PJF another round of settlement money, etc

-Spider Robinson (mega-overrated) gets mentioned for the 872th time as a person of note in the SFF community that every serious SFF fan should be aware of. tldr summary of Spider Robinson: Robert Heinlein was Spider Robinson's God, and Spider Robinson fully embraced the Moses role.

-The mailing list moderator(BackStabMod) who did a hostile takeover of the SF-LOVERS Digest lasted a little over 15 months managing the SFL mailing list before giving up, claiming privacy right concerns (a la DolphinF**ker) with the ARPANET and the inability to manage future SF-LOVERS mailing list Digests if they have no future ARPANET access are the real reasons why they are stepping down as SF-LOVERS mod. BackStabMod's explanations about privacy concerns were unironically accompanied by lots and lots of personal details of BackStabMod's life and future plans.

-Rudy Rucker, 1980s mathematician and scifi author got discussed. Some of the people like RR's work simply because they incorporate mathematics into their stories, others dislike RR for the shoehorned-in mathematics and the kookiness factor in RR's stories. Regardlessly, I had never heard of THE SEX SPHERE By Rudy Rucker before, and really don't plan on reading it.

-Movie chat continued, with WARGAMES 1983 & the upcoming DUNE movie directed by David Lynch being frequent topics of discussion. Nightmares(?) the anthology horror film had a gamer-hell segment that seemed very VR goggles. A weird arthouse movie call LIQUID SKY got mentioned for it's scifi elements and unique take on exploitation/horror/scifi/drugs.

-For the 5th time or so in SFL archives history, someone asked for lists "SF&F Novels of Literary Merit", and then got pissy at the lack of responses/not enough people doing their homework slash PhD thesis research for them. Basic things like the request being a loaded question, the requestor obviously fishing for data for their PhD thesis on Science Fiction Novels of Literary Merit, and the responder requesting all survey answers being sent to a obscure location confused and angered people similar to Arthur Dent and the house demolition notice (It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'). Additionally defending the merit of SFF is a hill SFF Culture Warrior John S Quarterman is willing to die on (John Quarterman requested people get his name right when referring to him so I did).

-Somebodies worse SF novel they can ever recall reading is ARMADA by Michael Jahn, which I have done zero research on,and will probably forget about until the next time I go through my SFL archive Vol 08 bookmarks

-Probably only of interest to me and a select few others, but TRAVELLER RPG gets mentioned a few times and this allows me to mention without any hate in my soul additional filksong lyrics chat along with the 300+ odes or verses to a filk-song about "olde time religion" or something similar. I refuse to bookmark filk-chat so you'll have to dig through SFL Vol 08 yourself to find them

-Private space sector efforts vs government funded space sector SFL archives chat in 1983 aged badly given the 2019/2020 private space sector events

-SF vs Sci-fi vs skiffy. AKA a fans of Science Fiction culture war that boils down to (in 2020 terms) how you refer to Science-Fiction in short-hand terms(SF vs Sci-fi vs skiffy) defining your TRUE FAN STATUS versus other people/other Science Fiction fans.

-Big time DOCTOR WHO chat. Peter Davidson leaving the role so soon after Tom Baker, and American Public access tv repeating the Doctor Who serials more than Star Trek the Original Series got repeated has driven up the SFL Dr Who Chat intensity.

 To give some context, the Five Doctors special just came out, which skewed slightly into Douglas Adams chat when Douglas Adam's as a Dr Who writer came up. John Nathan-Turner has been mentioned multiple times promising many things to Doctor Who fans, of which zero point zero zero zero zero three promises will actually happen (the first person of color companion promise took an additional 34 f**king years to happen)

-EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE, a D&D setting TSR abandoned in lieu of GREYHAWK, then FORGOTTEN REALMS, then MYSTARA, then FORGOTTEN REALMS (again) gets mentioned. Empire of the Petal Throne uses a hybrid China/Japan/Korea/India gameworld setting.

-On the topic of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, SFL chat was about how the books deviated from the original HHGTTG radio broadcasts and the followup BBC HHGTTG radio sequel programs. Finally Douglas Adams running out of tombstones to swear on while promising each HHGTTG sequel will be the "last one I swear" was the new SFL archives running joke (replacing the previous SFL running jokes of PAC-man puns and before that Indiana Jones sequel pun-names)

-Something called the unofficial Wizards and Warriors unathorized future history continuation has been hyped multiple times by one SFL poster. Suspecting that SFL postergot told to knock it off/stop hosting this on the ARPANET, because the last Wizards & Warriors hype pitch in SFL Vol 08 combines a "lost subscriber/please help me find them" with an acknowledgement of getting kicked off their former ARPANET/CSNet host

-Convention security run by SFF fans gets mentioned, with Robert Asprin of Myth/Thieves World/IRS back-taxes fame getting mentioned as the leader of the DORSAI IRREGULARS aka the Klingon Diplomatic Corps. Am pretty certain doing any kind of research into this group will involve cringe factors and discovering covered-up sexual assault

-MIT's Science Fiction Society slash private library gets mention-pimped in detail for the first time since 1980-1981. No idea if this exists currently or MIT cracked down on it. As I've said repeatedly before, I bookmark things of interest and very rarely look things up because there is so much stuff in the SFL Digest that if I took the time to look up everything mentioned, I would be much further behind in my SFL archive read-through.

-A post about "Death Star population = Imperial Cas" successfully predicts one of the events in "The Last Jedi" aka the hyperdrive suicide bombing.

originally posted July 31st in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3

SFL Archives Vol 03 readthrough update 01

-All the hopefulness posting about the Space Shuttle program in January 1981 makes me sad. These 1981 people had no idea what kind of disappointments lay ahead for the Space Shuttle program. "space filling foam" and "picking up shuttle tiles" SFL comments aged particularly badly. 

-Lots of 1960's/1970's/1980 era computer hardware failure stories/urban myths have been the exclusive topic of discussion for the past week or so. 4 parts urban myth stories to 3 parts "seen by a friend/me stories" to 1 part "destroying hardware is cool, here is how I *wink* would *wink* theoretically* wink* do so *wink*". That 1 part being so enthusiastic is another chapter in seeing Robert Tappan Morris's hijinks in a more sympathetic light.

(2020 sidenote: For people who never saw or dealt with 1960's/1970's/1980's computer hardware, in your head picture the following:

the TONKA school of design but everything built is extremely heavy, very fragile, and poorly welded in a era where OSHA compliance was people making you put money in the office swear-jar after you said "OH SHi--" during a nasty hardware failure event.)

-Jerry Pournelle posted a Press Release teaser for OATH OF FEALTY, his 1981 co-written with Larry Niven book about :sigh: hardcore libertarian's solving all of society's problems. (either genuinely never heard of this book before or I blocked all memories of it after reading because of it's terribleness. it's probably the 2nd thing, I hunted down Niven stories growing up)

-STAR WARS fan-fiction legality and gay characters appearing/not appearing in official Star Wars products.

-filksongs continue to appear and continue to annoy me (filksongs are/were SFF fan lyics karaoked over popular songs) enough to finally mention them in a "Let's read the SFL archives" post.

-The first appearance of "do my <college mathematics course> homework/research for me" appeared in the SFL archives around mid January 1981.

- The 1981 LastCon in Albany NY cosplay contest winner was a lady wearing "a costume of Luke riding a Taun-Taun", and then "all people in costume should go down to the disco and truly freak out the mundanes."...which happened, but the disco's bouncer bounced the Luke-on-Taun-Taun cosplayer.

(2020 sidenote: to read the full story of Lastcon 1981, search SFL Vol 03 for [[ DP@MIT-ML 01/28/81 00:25:49 Re: Lastcon report ]].)

-LS.MELTSNER made a series of posts about why they find hard-core libertarianism books so unrealistic, which kicked off a debate about libertarism in fiction featuring the heinlein defense squad.

-Robert Forward and a SFL troll in rare non-troll mode both posted "advice for new writers circa 1981". reposting both messages as historical data for the authors/aspiring authors reading this thread.

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

Date: 18 JAN 1981 1102-PST

From: FORWARD at USC-ECL

Subject: Amateur Author Query

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine has a few sheets of

advice and instructions to new writers that you should get, read,

and follow. Send a self-addressed stamped long business-size

envelope and a note requesting "Advice to Authors" to: IASFM,

Box 13116, Philadelphia, PA 19101.

After you have written your short story (following George

Scither's advice), then just mail it to one of the science fiction

magazines, where it will be read BY THE EDITOR. Most people don't

believe it, but ALL manuscripts to Analog, IASFM, and Omni are at

least glanced at by the respective editors. The only winnowing

that is done by the editorial assistants is to 1) make sure that

your name and address is on the manuscript, 2) the return envelope

has postage on it, 3) it is double-spaced, single-sided, and in

english, 4) is a story, not a letter. The assistant then makes

two piles, one of stories from authors that have published before,

and another of those that are not so familiar sounding. The first

stack gets the editors attention right away, but that only takes

a few hours, the editor then devotes the rest of his time, and

his commuting time on train or plane searching through the "slush"

pile for that great gem, a new author. George Scithers has been

averaging one new author an issue.

You do get paid for stories by the professional magazines.

5-7 cents per word by the digest size ones, up to $500-1500 by

Omni. You will also receive a contract outlining the rights

they are buying. You should only sell "first world English

language serial rights" to your copyright.

As for copyrights, you are protected under the new law when

you type "Copyright (c) 1980 by Ima Newauthor" on the front page.

When the story is published by the magazine, and IF they send in

the two copies and the filing fee to the Register of Copyrights,

then your copyright is automatically registered.

Any other questions?

Bob Forward

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

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Date: 18 JAN 1981 2203-EST

From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock)

Subject: first stories

SALES are easy. You just keep sending out everything you write

to every conceivable market, and sooner or later something will

catch on. This can take a \long/ time, but it works for most

people who have the persistence. Obvious markets: the editorial

offices (listed on the contents pages) of ANALOG, ASIMOV'S, F&SF,

AMAZING/FANTASTIC if you have little pride and no expectation of

being paid, OMNI for the thrill. Note that Asimov's will send a

style sheet (in fact, they request that you send for it before

sending them anything) on format for a submitted manuscript;

it's very helpful.

COPYRIGHT: state on the title page "Copyright [c-in-a-circle]

[year] by [your name]"; under the revised law this is sufificient

until the manuscript is actually published, at which point other

factors are managed by the publisher. \Always/ keep a carbon for

evidence, reference, and the perversity of the Post Offal.

MONEY: Usually a zine has a fixed rate per word, sliding downward

for longer material. None of the above are entitled to publish the

story for free, although there are magazines of legend which paid

authors only on threat of lawsuit. Others pay on acceptance or

publication.

REVIEWING: This is the hardest part. Asking friends is a good way

to get sweetened criticism and/or drive them away. Frequently an

editor who sees some promise in a work will take some time to point

outflaws, although a commentless bounce doesn't mean it's hopeless;

editors vary and I don't know what current personal policies are.

The National Fantasy Fan Federation has a story contest which may

get you some useful comments; the one with 12/1/80 deadline was

managed by Donald Franson, 6543 Babcock Ave., North Hollywood CA

91606; he should know about next year's contest. If you're \really/

serious about this, there are some good beginning writers' workshops,

and a lot of terrible ones.

ADVICE: Magazines are frequently in need of good short material,

although such will often take longer to appear once sold. First

novels without a published background and/or a sponsor are difficult

to sell, although you could always try Manor Books if you can think

of a good pseudonym. Once you sell something, you are eligible to

join SF Writers of America, an organization with many flaws but

some overriding virtues; do so.

GOOD LUCK! And let us all know when you sell something.

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originally posted between June 29th - June 30th in the SomethingAwful forums Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3