JACOB@CMU-CS-C.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (10/04/83)
Why do some people get so upset when someone use the term "Sci-Fi"?
I (and many of my friend's) think this is the sensible way to pronounce
SF. Is there some real reason not to use this term, or is this just another one
of those "real fan" things? Flame off. (Clobberin' off?)
Anyway, on the subject of juvenile SF: I first started reading SF with truly
massive amounts of the (Lester) Del Rey juveniles. There must have been dozens
of them. I have no idea how good they are; I've never had the nerve to go back
and reread them. Some other stuff that I read that I think no-one has mentioned
is a few random books by Alexander Key, several excellent juveniles by Ben
Bova, and at least 2 books by Gordon R. Dickson (and ?) with titles like Secret
Under ____. I moved onto 'adult' books pretty quickly though; I never saw a
library with a good selection of SF books before the Star Wars craze hit, so
I couldn't afford to be fussy.
[<{(Jacob Butcher)}>]
^parenthetically speaking...
-------rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/06/83)
Oddly enough, one of my early SF books was 'Stranger in a Strange Land', or rather, the first half of it. It took me several tries (and several years) to get past the political meeting in the middle where Smith is declared ambassador of Mars, etc. I really enjoyed the first half, though, as well as other of Heinlein's books, such as 'The Puppet Masters', 'Waldo', 'Magic, Inc.', 'Door into Summer', etc. - rene
wombat@uicsl.UUCP (10/07/83)
#R:sri-arpa:-1228500:uicsl:10700044:000:711
uicsl!wombat Oct 6 14:09:00 1983
***** uicsl:net.sf-lovers / sri-arpa!ARPA / 4:20 pm Oct 3, 1983
Why do some people get so upset when someone use the term "Sci-Fi"?
I (and many of my friend's) think this is the sensible way to pronounce
SF. Is there some real reason not to use this term, or is this just another one
of those "real fan" things? Flame off. (Clobberin' off?)
[<{(Jacob Butcher)}>]
^parenthetically speaking...
----------
It's just one of those "real fan" things. If it bothers you, sometimes
you can get away with it if you pronounce it "skiffy." It's also used
to "discredit" people who write articles on "Sci-Fi" as outsiders who
don't know what they're talking about.
Wombat
ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombatkcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll) (10/11/83)
Alright, Anecdote Time... The way that I heard it, the term "sci-fi", pronounced "sky-fie", was invented by the noted SF fan Forrest Ackerman in the 1950's. The term was based on the contemporary term "hi-fi", referring to high-fidelity sound-reproduction equipment. His motive was to separate the sheep from the wolves; that is, the amateurs and tyros in the SF field from the much more knowledgable and sophisticated fans (in those days, fandom was much more cohesive than it is today, with a fairly small group of people all reading the same magazines, corresponding through letter columns, and attending the same conventions). He may have done this in response to the explosive growth in published SF during the 50's, accompanied by a large number of professed SF fans and writers who were science-fictionally illeterate, and threatened to swamp the field, and destroy its identity. The idea was that the old guard would use the term SF, while the unaware newcomers would say sci-fi, making themselves objects of derision (at least, until they learned better). Unfortunately, SF has by now lost much of its identity, with many of the early writers dead and a new generation of readers (numbering probably many more than the entire of SF fandom in the '50s) considering Alan Dean Foster's "Star Wars" adaptations to be classic sci-fi; oh, it makes me mad...! I forget where I heard this particular story; I've undoubtedly gotten some of the details wrong. Are there any fans out there who know Forry Ackerman, who could fill in the picture? -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll