I'm reading one of the pocketbook-novels. My guess is it's from the 1970s.
I just got to a part where the main guy invented a new device. They talk about the non-standard recording tape. You know, like VHS vs Beta although they didn't mention those by name.
This guy invented a recorder that uses the 8-track technology. Way advanced! And the device is only 8 inches high and 12 inches long. Real small and light, according to the story.
So, would reading that bother you?
Not really. There is a lot of retro/historical science fiction out there. I'd put it in a similar category to steam-punk.
As long as the technology is relevant to the era the story is set in, it's not a problem. I view the same as a story set in the 1870s use a colt pistol as against a modern story using a Glock.
Heck, one of my stories I started writing in 2004 and published in 2007 had mention of new tech in 2015 which we've not yet obtained. So it's dated, but still a good story.
On the assumption that the author is a good storyteller, I really like to read dated stories - because they are dated.
It's like jumping into your magic Delorean and traveling back to whenever the story is set. But since it was actually written in the destination time, it's likely a more accurate portrayal than today's author remembering or researching the time period.
Speaking of deloreans, back to the future went forward to 2015. And apparently Friends is popular again - with people not born when it came out.
So all stories age. Even if the technology doesn't, the social commentary will. Star Trek has warp drive and photon torpedoes and transparent aluminum etc but it also has a universe filled with humanoid life forms who wear 60s clothing and talk English. And a lot of the sci go I've read on this site is also all humanoids.
About the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey. And just look at the year in the title...
It reminds me also of several bits of feedback I got for Backcountry, where several different readers all wrote to express their dismay that the MCs feel they were in paradise; surely they must know what with what was about to happen in the following years?
If I write a story that ends on a happy ever after note in 2020, will those reading in 2022 feel somehow frustrated that they didn't anticipate the Second Civil War or whatever happens in real life in 2021?
I read a lot of dated stories and I still enjoy them.
transparent aluminum
For the record, that movie stirred a quiet shit storm. Aluminium oxynitride was in development, but highly classified when that movie came out. Remember it was 1986 and the cold war was still on with the USSR at the time.
it also has a universe filled with humanoid life forms who wear 60s clothing and talk English.
While it also did have Russians and Asians, it didn't have Middle-Easterners because ... it's the future. :)
Also, there were the episodes in TOS where they wore 1930's gangster clothing, 1940's Nazi uniforms, and circa 1500's Indian (feather, not dot) clothing.
While it also did have Russians and Asians, it didn't have Middle-Easterners because ... it's the future. :)
ST was written for an American audience in the 1960's. That culture, at that time, had exposure to both Russian and Asian cultures that could be easily, if stereotypically, understood by the audience. Not so much middle eastern until the mid to late 70's.
It also referenced Nazi, American Indian and late 60s counter cultures, which could also be understood by the audience. Or misunderstood, since they were blatant stereotypes.
ST was written for an American audience in the 1960's. That culture, at that time, had exposure to both Russian and Asian cultures that could be easily, if stereotypically, understood by the audience. Not so much middle eastern until the mid to late 70's.
ST:TOS was written for that time period. ST:TNG, ST:VOY, and ST:DS9 were NOT. Not a lot of civilians from Arab lands on any of the Starbases or Picards ship, were there? (I'm also being a little tongue in cheek here.)
Never got into them. Never really watched them. I assume they were just blindly following Rodenberry's original work. That seems like standard pulp TV fair.
I assume they were just blindly following Rodenberry's original work.
Gene passed away, so it ended up with Rick Berman to guide things after that. TOS was supposed to be Wagon Train to the Stars - which if you're old enough to remember Wagon Train, you know how it was intended. TNG the first season had serious issues, but they worked most of those out later on. And I'm so ashamed - I completely forgot about ST:ENT, if mostly because other than Jolene Blalock, it was a forgettable series.
Gene passed away, so it ended up with Rick Berman to guide things after that.
Not entirely true, Gene's daughter had much influence on the way those series and some of the movies progressed. I believe she was trying to keep her father's legacy intact.
Not entirely true, Gene's daughter had much influence on the way those series and some of the movies progressed. I believe she was trying to keep her father's legacy intact.
By daughter, you mean his 2nd Wife Majel Barrett, and his son by said wife? AFAIK, they have had very minimal involvement in the operations of Star Trek aside from guest appearance in Majel's case(or recurring voice-over work for her), and her son didn't even watch Star Trek until after his father passed away while he was 17. While he's ostensibly one of the first people credited as an Executive Producer for ST:Discovery, and he "approved" of the first Trek reboot movie. I doubt he could have done much to stop it regardless.
Majel Barrett did give us Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict though, and apparently turned over that production company to their Son.
Speaking of deloreans, back to the future went forward to 2015.
I thought Back to the Future came out in 1985 and traveled 30 years into the past - 1955. I believe the sequel, Back to the Future II, went forward 30 years from 1985 to 2015.
About the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey. And just look at the year in the title...
Space 1999? I've never seen it, but I'm aware of its existence at the least.
I've found a lot of programs haven't aged well at all in my book. While others have surprised me with how well they've seemingly aged. Which puts the ball back in the court of "it depends on the skill of the story teller."
Generally speaking, it seems the "pulpier" stuff tends to not age as well, but as with most things, there are exceptions that will be found. Or maybe they happened to have gifted storytellers in their midst that were "slumming it" by churning out pulp.
bout the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Battlestar Galactica?
IIRC, no aliens humanoid or otherwise.
Battlestar Galactica?
IIRC, no aliens humanoid or otherwise.
I suppose it depends on how you define it, but the Cylons in the original (1978) Galactica were designed by a reptilian (i.e. non-human) race, presumably wiped out by their own battle robots.
References to a long destroyed alien civilization is not humans meeting aliens.
The Cylons in the 1978 version were created by an alien race. As I said, it depends on your definition, but the Cylons were neither human, nor human constructed.
As I said, it depends on your definition, but the Cylons were neither human, nor human constructed.
Human constructed or not, they are machines, not aliens.
Human constructed or not, they are machines, not aliens.
And how would you classify Commander Data? Is he a toaster?
And how would you classify Commander Data? Is he a toaster?
He is neither human nor alien, but then in a sci-fi setting with aliens, not being human doesn't make him not a person. He is a machine, but he's a good deal more advanced than a toaster.
And how would you classify Commander Data? Is he a toaster?
Or R. Daneel Olivaw?
HM.
Human constructed or not, they are machines, not aliens.
Divinely constructed or not, when you get down to the atoms, humans are machines. ;)
In the original source material, they were described as being built by a reptilian species, who like in the reboot created them as workers and warriors. But a mistake in programming one of the leadership caste made them violent and they destroyed their creators.
They adopted the name Cylon from their creators, and started a "crusade" to eliminate all sentient life forms. In many ways, they can be seen as a prototype of the Borg.
Saberhagen's Berserkers were probably the Cylon prototype, the first book was published around the time Larson started working on Battlestar Galactica.
Saberhagen's idea of humans willing to fight where other races would lack the needed agression was also re-used in John Ringo's Posleen universe and the Swarm series here on SOL, which is effectively Posleen fan fiction.
As Saberhagen made a good living writing Bram Stoker fan fiction I doubt he would complain if still alive.
Just reading the wiki page on BSG, its actually Mormons in Space!
Thanks! So I have read some Mormon theology outside of the works of John Moses Browning (Pbuh).. :p
Thanks! So I have read some Mormon theology outside of the works of John Moses Browning (Pbuh).. :p
Galaxy Quest has some Mormon fingerprints on it as well.
Saberhagen's idea of humans willing to fight where other races would lack the needed agression was also re-used in John Ringo's Posleen universe and the Swarm series here on SOL, which is effectively Posleen fan fiction.
The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster also has a similar basis of aliens who have eliminated violence from their abilities to a great degree finding a need to fight for their survival and then finding humans to do it for them.
Just reading the wiki page on BSG, its actually Mormons in Space!
Not quite Mormon's in space, but it(OG BSG, not the reboot) certainly is Mormon theology writ with a different skew on it.
It isn't even entirely Mormon specific in many regards.
You have the 12 Tribes which have been changed into Colonies. The promised land becomes the mythical 13th tribe(for the reboot at least). Which leaves Adama basically being a Moses-type figure leading the 12 Tribes, I mean Colonies, through the wilderness as they journey towards the promised land.
Now I understand the creator for BSG slipped in a bunch of other more discrete Mormon-specific references into the show(he was a Mormon himself). But the core concept for it is lifted from the Bible.
Edit: Well, that and a healthy helping of the entirely Mormon "As Man is, God once was. As God is, Man may become" which kind of leads us into "It has happened before, it can happen again."
Actually, the original series has several species of aliens.
The Borelian Nomen, the Ovians (an insectoid race), the Acmarans,the Borays, and many others. It was the reboot that avoided aliens, not the original series.
About the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey
How about Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth?
Not enough tech? The 'Tar-Aiym Krang' should have enough alien tech beyond the knowledge of both Thranx and Humans.
HM.
Star Trek has warp drive and photon torpedoes and transparent aluminum etc but it also has a universe filled with humanoid life forms who wear 60s clothing and talk English.
Of course you hear English, one of the cornerstones of Federation technology is the Universal Translator, the aliens hear their language, and you hear yours. It is an even more basic part of their tech base than the communicator or the replicator.
Of course you hear English, one of the cornerstones of Federation technology is the Universal Translator, the aliens hear their language, and you hear yours. It is an even more basic part of their tech base than the communicator or the replicator.
Then we have The Doctor. The TARDIS telepathic circuit allows you to converse with just about any life form.
Then we have The Doctor. The TARDIS telepathic circuit allows you to converse with just about any life form.
... and the Babel Fish
So, would reading that bother you?
I hope not, given my stories all start between 1976 and 1981! And I spend considerable time discussing 'new' tech in them. :-)
Brick or bag cellphone, anyone?? TRS-80? Pay phones? A majority people being able to drive a manual transmission in the USA?
Don't mock the Trash 80 (TRS-80) It was my first computer, it was the one I used to learn to program in basic. It had tape storage and 4k of RAM. I had to hard wire additional memory to bring it up to 64k.
Those were the days. A 5 Megabyte hard drive weighed in the neighborhood of 5 lbs. the disc drive had to have a controller card.
Programs were limited to 64k.
Yep, good times (LOL)
A 5 Megabyte hard drive weighed in the neighborhood of 5 lbs. the disc drive had to have a controller card.
In 1956 a 5mb hard drive took a forklift to move.
Star Trek has ... a universe filled with humanoid life forms who wear 60s clothing and talk English.
Star Trek was making a TV series with very limited special effects. It was deliberately a Utopian vision of the future. To have humanoid aliens was a deliberate production choice. At the same time as Star Trek, Dr Who was attempting to create genuinely alien looking aliens with a similar level of special effects and managed to pull it off to some extent - though some of their aliens are laughable now. The difference is that Dr Who wasn't pushing a future Utopia. Their themes were more about difference and surviving conflict.
So, would reading that bother you?
Not me, some of my favorite books are E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. I love the badly predicted technology. When they capture an enemy records ship they discover data written across miles and miles of magnetic tape.
Bother me? Not for technology. There are some times when datedness bothers me. This usually has to do with popular culture references. Throwbacks work better, setting the time and place and reaching back to it. Work better than contemporary references at the very least. References that burn out once the story has been out for 3 years, or sometimes less, are the kind of dating I dislike.
Bother me? Not for technology. There are some times when datedness bothers me. This usually has to do with popular culture references. Throwbacks work better, setting the time and place and reaching back to it. Work better than contemporary references at the very least. References that burn out once the story has been out for 3 years, or sometimes less, are the kind of dating I dislike.
This covers it very well. A lot of content was produced to appeal to the viewer of that time, and often relied upon contextual information later viewers are likely to miss entirely(Airplane is an interesting example. Younger audiences can and do still enjoy it, but a lot of the references and jokes it makes are going to be missed by the younger viewer).
The programs that "age better" tend to supply more of the context with the show rather than simply assuming you already have it.
This covers it very well. A lot of content was produced to appeal to the viewer of that time, and often relied upon contextual information later viewers are likely to miss entirely(Airplane is an interesting example. Younger audiences can and do still enjoy it, but a lot of the references and jokes it makes are going to be missed by the younger viewer).
Exactly this. I do miss a few references in Airplane, not as much as the younger people I have forced it on, and it's still my favorite comedy.
Nope. If the story is good, then the story is good.
Jerry Pournelles's A Spaceship for the King is a prime example.
Haven is newly rediscovered by the reconstituted Empire of Man and about to be strip mined of resources as a slave planet. Lacking space flight they are considered no better than wogs to be colonised.
By accident the Havenites find out about this, along with the existence of an ancient First Empire library on the fallen to barbarism planet of Makassar. They buy passage for a 'trade mission' to Makassar, hoping to find the secrets of space flight in the library.
IIRC in the original serialization in Analog the library used magnetic tape.
In the reprint the library was retconned to be a memory cube.
I actually preferred the story with magnetic tape. In a fictional world little things like that say its a fictional world, one with all the details filled out.
India provides call centers via satellite, while still runnings a steam train network. its the little things that show a society is fundamentally different.
Admittedly, hand-in-pocket novels were not really about world building or society, so oddity's like that may throw coxsuns off their stroke.
Nope. If the story is good, then the story is good.
Jerry Pournelles's A Spaceship for the King is a prime example.
Haven is newly rediscovered by the reconstituted Empire of Man and about to be strip mined of resources as a slave planet. Lacking space flight they are considered no better than wogs to be colonised.
By accident the Havenites find out about this, along with the existence of an ancient First Empire library on the fallen to barbarism planet of Makassar. They buy passage for a 'trade mission' to Makassar, hoping to find the secrets of space flight in the librar
What just struck me was that the method of propulsion they wound up using is basically a low-tech, non-nuclear version of a means of propulsion that was actually studied in the 60s, and that appeared in another one of Jerry's stories about an alien invasion.
Jerry worked on Apollo & Minuteman. Ben Bova was the editor of Analog and had worked on the Vanguard rocket program. Plenty of potential for brainstorming of different possibilities.
Project Orion was the nucear bomb powered spaceship used in Footfall.
A Spaceship for the King
That was also published as King David's Spaceship for some reason. Rough riding a cannon into space.
Unless the plot centers around a specific technology that has been superseded/dead-ended I don't usually pay that much attention to it. What is important is who well it fits into the story, and if it makes sense in the context of the story. A prime example would be the Sherlock Holmes stories. While they were set in what was essentially current times for the author, the technology is only used to support the story, not make it.
I am currently reading the Philo Vance mystery novels. They were written in the 1920's and 1930's. VERY interesting. The only thing in them that stands out is that apparently back then, they spelled "CLUE" "CLEW"!
It doesn't bother me though.
So, would reading that bother you?
Why would it.? A story set in the 70's that references 70's tech is no different to a 12th century story that references swords.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
Even the reference of CD's and 3.5" floppy disks in a story set in the 70's would bother me, both weren't in use before 1982.
I admit I could tolerate the reference if it was in passing, but not if their features were needed for the plot.
HM.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
Such a story would necessarily be an alternative timeline story. If it were intended to be based on reality, it would bother anyone I'd think.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
For me, it would depend on the nature of the story. If it's retro-science-fiction or an alternate history, then reference / use of generic technologies (DVD, tablet computer) before their real world invention wouldn't bother me at all.
On the other hand, if the story was supposed to be a historical romance, it would.
In either case, the use of RW brand names (iPad) early would be an issue for me.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
Unless it was a do-over, where the person was dealing with HP calculators that used magnetic strips and computers with magnetic tape drives (big ones, not home PC's) and lamenting that he wasn't going to see DVD's and iPads for years. I bring this up simply because I just recently re-read 'A New Past'.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
There's a literary term for that. Didn't Shakespeare mention a clock in a time period before they were invented?
Shakespeare introduced them purposely for "dramatic purposes".
Or Shakespeare simply screwed up and the intellectuals are giving him more credit than he deserves.
Or Shakespeare simply screwed up and the intellectuals are giving him more credit than he deserves.
Shakespeare was a Mason. Perhaps he had Secret Knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism. :)
Harry Turtledove also mentioned a clockwork device on pre-christian earth in his first Videssos book, published in 1987. He has a degree in Byzantine History, so he may of been aware of the Mechanism in those pre-internet days.
Harry Turtledove also mentioned a clockwork device on pre-christian earth in his first Videssos book, published in 1987.
There are a number well know ancient "clockwork" devices. Clockwork in that they are geared machines driven by water, controlled decent of weights or spring tension.
However, the important thing, for this conversation, about those ancient clockwork devices is that none of them are actual clocks, none of them functioned as timekeeping devices.
What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.
If the person making the reference is from the 2010s I have no problem with that. I agree it would bother me if there was no alternate history/ time travel involved.
Dated stories don't bother me unless they reached fourth base - I'm not interested in sloppy seconds ;)
AJ
Ok, so sinking to your level, a dated story isn't as good as a one about a sultana. Unless it is too long and needs to be pruned...
ps
Is spirited wine made from the grapes of wraith...?
All SOL stories and Forum posts have a date at the top of the post and a time posted. So they are all dated. But I don't think anyone of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, takes them out on a date.
But I don't think anyone of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, takes them out on a date.
I would date you, Richard. We could hit a movie, dinner, and a bar and ogle women. Too bad joy probably couldn't be there.
Oh, and the fact I can't seem to do anything outside of the house other force myself to go to work because of the pain.
Getting old sucks.
Acquired a Zane Grey western in a Kindle bundle. His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.
His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.
And yet for a western set anywhen in the 19th century, not using that nomenclature would be completely implausible.
However, the two books accompanying Grey were by Max Brand and Louis L'Amour. Neither used the n word or spic.
And yet for a western set anywhen in the 19th century, not using that nomenclature would be completely implausible.
Neither used the n word or spic
Well, I wouldn't expect spic in a western set in the 19th century. From what I can find on-line, the oldest known use of spic would be from 1910.
As to the n word, people used it in that era (19th century).
Of course there is the issue with Max Brand and Louis L'Amour of whether or not they even had any black characters in their books. If they did, I stand by my comment that avoiding it is implausible/inauthentic.
I stand by my comment that avoiding it is implausible/inauthentic.
I agree. I have the N-word used in dialogue throughout my novella "Death of a Hero." How can I not? It's about racists and how they get what's coming to them.
Louis L'Amour of whether or not they even had any black characters in their books. If they did, I stand by my comment that avoiding it is implausible/inauthentic.
He had one I think, which is even more implausible, as roughly half of the old west cowboys were black. It was hard, dangerous work, for low pay, and who would want to be stuck riding drag (riding behind the herd in all the dust)?
Acquired a Zane Grey western in a Kindle bundle. His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.
Then I suggest you never watch 'Blazing Saddles'.
Mel Brooks I can take. You know he's knowingly going for a laugh when he has Yiddish speaking Indians. Grey on the other hand was casual about it.
Then I suggest you never watch 'Blazing Saddles'.
Acquired a Zane Grey western in a Kindle bundle. His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.
The Charlie Chan novels were a little hard to read for the same reason. As with the Philo Vance novels. The 1920's police in the story were not kind to a guy from Egypt.
I'm a Science Fiction fan, and I have SF magazines which go back to the '60s.
Some of the technology is amusing. Many have FTL by now.) One puzzle is picture-hones. We could have them today; we nearly do. But nobody today is sending a selfie regularly while carrying on a conversation, although they could. That, often with a phone that plugged into the wall, was standard for the future of the '60s.
But nobody today is sending a selfie regularly while carrying on a conversation,
Facetime
Facetime
You beat me to it.
Now, if he was referencing the phone booth from '2001', then we don't have that, because we already HAVE Dick Tracy watches now.
we already HAVE Dick Tracy watches now.
But not Get Smart's shoe.
Speaking of phone booths, I once saw a cartoon where two young girls were standing in the middle of a dirt road with one of those phone booths (not really a booth) on a pole with a phone book hanging down from a chain. One girl said, "What is it?" The other girl was taking a picture with her iPhone and said, "I don't know. I'll take a picture and ask Grandma."
Half of his gadgets didn't work right anyway.
I think the only one Maxwell Smart's gadgets that consistently worked on the original series was his shoe phone.
But nobody today is sending a selfie regularly while carrying on a conversation,
Facetime
Marco-Polo is popular with a fair bit of my family, I don't use it, but I know my mother, three of my sisters, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, and a few of my nieces are using it. But their use seems to be more an interactive video-blog kind of thing that can happen in non-realtime, although I have seen it used realtime as well, that's rare.
I fucking love reading about the 1960s or 1970s setting.
There weren't cell phones to snap pictures or text people - so you had to pick up the phone and call them.
There is a story called "Suburban Girl" by Punky Girl that is genius. It is set in the early 2000s perhaps when there were still video stores but at the very end of that period. I could picture it all playing out exactly as she described it because I lived it.
The guy who owned the store was an integral part of the story and he had all this time on his hands precisely because video was on its way out.
So many awesome stories are set in earlier times that it seems counter intuitive to ask me if I would have a hard time with a story from an earlier time. I'd love it. Big hair/big tits 1980s especially.
I'd love to read a BDSM story about a WWII 1940s era setting - Dad leaves home for the war, and the eldest son has to take over the head of the household duties!!
Perhaps he misunderstood your offer, thinking you meant a date palm? Or a date with his palm...?
I started to reread an old favorite today I hadn't read for several years. Robert Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children," first published in novel form in 1958, was a favorite of mine when I was young. Reading it now, I find his description of the future jarring and distracting, reminding me of this thread. Considering that it was first published in 3 parts in 1941, it's no wonder that he had no references to TV, computers, the internet, DNA research, etc. and got so much wrong. I guess that this will always be the problem when novels that predict future society are later read by people now living in that 'future time' described. :) I wonder what readers and viewers a hundred years from now will think of our current crop of predictive sci-fi novels & movies?
I rather enjoyed "The Bourne Identity" (Both the film and the book)
I must say I was struck by how in the book, written before our ubiquitous smart phones, days would elapse whilst he waited for information.
I suppose if it was written nowadays, the whole story would have been tied up in a couple of hours after he Googled the information or had the cellular towers pinged to find the bad guy's location ;)
I suppose if it was written nowadays, the whole story would have been tied up in a couple of hours after he Googled the information or had the cellular towers pinged to find the bad guy's location ;)
That's a little different. I had to set my novel "Sexual Awakening" in 1999 because of the dot.com boom in that period and the spammers sending out porn in emails.
Not having technology we have today isn't what I meant. What threw me was him inventing something that never happened based on technology that died (8 tracks). But based on the comments here, it's no big deal.
When the first 20 meg hard drive came out for $2,000 it was thought no one could ever fill it.
When the first 20 meg hard drive came out for $2,000 it was thought no one could ever fill it.
That was me. My first PC in 1980 (I think) was an IBM PC with two floppy drives. When the XT came out, I replaced one floppy with a 10mb hard drive and thought I would never fill it up.
Ahh, must be the 5150. Worked on many of them over the years, threw away many more.
I could get rich and retire now if I had just saved all those old computer parts I trashed 20+ years ago.
When the first 20 meg hard drive came out for $2,000 it was thought no one could ever fill it.
I had one of those. It was more expensive than the complete computer including the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I had no problem at all filling it up :D
I think one of the most frustrating things when writing a "period piece" is when people just up and challenge me, talking about how I am wrong.
I am writing one set in the 1980's, and mentioned how sex between an 18 year old MC and his 16 year old girlfriend was a felony. And I got challenged saying it was not. Then I reminded them this was set in the early 1980s, not in the current time.
In the 1980s, you still had people getting arrested for oral sex with their spouses, and for people for having gay sex.
I humorously had another reader ask why none of my characters had cell phones. Uhhh, it is 1982. Nobody had cell phones back then.
I often chuckle at how often people do not understand that even 40 years ago is incomprehensible to modern readers.
I am writing one set in the 1980's, and mentioned how sex between an 18 year old MC and his 16 year old girlfriend was a felony. And I got challenged saying it was not. Then I reminded them this was set in the early 1980s, not in the current time.
It would depend on where you were, as well. In Ohio, the age of consent was 16, so 18/16 (or 38/16) would have been legal. In the early 80s, if the girl was 15 and the guy college age or younger, it was generally ignored, or plead out as misdemeanor 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor'.
YMMV, and I'm speaking only about southern Ohio in the early 80s. That said, Ohio still has an age of consent of 16 (and that includes marriage with parental approval).
Most of my work centers on either southern Ohio or Illinois. Illinois toughened their laws in the mid 80s, and has an age of consent of 17.
It would depend on where you were, as well. In Ohio, the age of consent was 16, so 18/16 (or 38/16) would have been legal. In the early 80s, if the girl was 15 and the guy college age or younger, it was generally ignored, or plead out as misdemeanor 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor'.
When makes a bigger difference. From what I've read, in the late 19th Century US, the median age of consent was 10.
However, the most important consideration is not where the story is set, or when, but when and where it is being published.
When posting stories on-line involving under-age sex, you need to be aware of where the site's servers are (SOL is in Canada) and what the law is there. If the country where the servers are located decides to bring charges against the author, they aren't going to care what the age of consent was when/where the story was set.
Among Western Democracies, the US is unique in virtual child porn being legal.
And in the US, some writers of child porn stories have been prosecuted not under child porn laws, but generic obscenity laws. Though, in all the cases of successful prosecutions I am aware of the stories were alleged to have included not just under age sex, but violent rape and torture of prepubescent children.
Among Western Democracies, the US is unique in virtual child porn being legal.
It's that pesky thing we call the First Amendment.
It's that pesky thing we call the First Amendment.
Yep.
Originally the US Supreme Court created an First Amendment exception for child pornography entirely on the basis of the harm done to the children used to produce it.
in the mid to late 1990s, the US Congress passed a law banning virtual child porn. In 2001 or 2002, one of the first prosecutions under the new law came up before the Supreme Court and they very emphatically refused to extend the child porn exception to cover virtual child porn.
Actually, it likely that the age of consent would be lower in 1980 than now. At that time several states had ages 13-15 in their statutes. The ages have gradually increased to the 16 (in about half the states,) 17 (notably Texas and NY) or 18 (mostly in the west.) Most states also have Romeo and Juliet laws that would negate guilt in the situation you mention.
My story was set in California. They only changed their law in the late 1990s to include sex over 16 was allowed so long as they were no more than 3 years apart in age.
I knew a couple in High School, he was 18 and she was 16. She got knocked up, and the doctor reported it as child abuse. Right after the cops interviewed her, they and their parents took them to Nevada to get married.
And to this day, california has no "Romeo and Juliet" law. They generally refuse to prosecute, but they still can if they choose.
When and where I grew up, the age of consent was 16, but sex between adults and minors was in any case illegal. This left my ten-months-younger girlfriend and me in the odd situation where we were legal for a little over a year — from her 16th birthday to my 18th — then were not legal for ten months — from my 18th birthday to hers — and then were legal again after she turned 18. (Though by that time we were broken up because I'd gone away to college.)
My first was also the 5150 and I loved the description in the add. "Whopping 4.3 mhz processor, 56k onboard ram, dual 512k floppy (and I do mean floppy) drives (one to load DOS and one to load the program.) and a green monochrome monitor."
On another topic I like watching "Law and Order" and notice the evolution of phones over 20 years from pay phones to flip phones. And I thought what happened to the Brick phone? Then I remember no street cop would ever be able to afford one.
and a green monochrome monitor."
I bought a color monitor. Everyone said it would hurt my eyes, but that's what I bought.
Remember going to computer shows and buying a program that came on 15-20 floppy discs you had to load one after the other? I still have a bunch of them.
Remember going to computer shows and buying a program that came on 15-20 floppy discs
I worked for a company called MicroAge which sold computer hardware. They were alpha testing a vending machine that sold software like cigarettes or soda pop (on floppies).
If you ever want a laugh, look on the Windows 95 installation CD.
It had on it something like 30 CAB files, each one around 1.7MB in size. That was a propitiatory floppy standard you would make with other programs. You could literally copy 1 to each floppy, and make your own Windows 95 install floppies.
I am so old, I remember when Windows only needed 5 360k floppies. And ran on a 4.77MHz XT.
I am so old, I remember when
I remember when it was core before memory. Programming on coding sheets that were turned over to the gals who typed on keypunch machines to punch holes in cards. When you got the deck of punched cards back you'd give it to the computer operator to read into the mainframe. The input device was a card reader. And tab machines that you programmed by wiring boards.
Think you're old?
Same here, but I punched my own keycards.
We used the large 80 column coding sheets, then did it ourselves. And as you said, handed it off to the operator then went to have a cup of coffee while waiting my turn in the cue.
I sure do not miss those days.
I have kicking around here somewhere a complete Linux distro on about thirty 3.5" floppies. I made it to put on an old 386 laptop that had no means of connecting a CD-ROM drive, no built-in Ethernet, and no PCMCIA slots. And its serial port, for reasons I never figured out, didn't work. I ended up connecting it to the network through its parallel port, but in order to do that, I had to get the Linux distro, with a custom kernel, onto it first...
How many here when they got their first flip phone and pretended to be Cpt. Kirk and flipped it open with a flick of the wrist? At least until the top half went flying across the room?
I'm still using a PDP 11 with 9" discs at work for data collection. About 20 years I bought 300 boxes of disks st an auction for a $1 a box so I would not run out.
Back in 76-77 I took a computer class in high school where we would have to punch upto 100 cards then turn them in and a week later we would get them back with either pass or fail. If we failed we had to go over each card and find each mistake.
Well, there were other formats before those two, but they were larger and not smaller (the U-matic format springs to mind, those were huge).
But from a strictly technological view, that would not have worked. The media in 8-track and Cassette was simply not good enough. They just could not hand the data in order to save a quality worth watching. It would be like that Game Boy camera.
And yes, there was actually at least 1 camcorder made that used cassette tapes. The quality was complete garbage.
However, I admit back in the day I did enjoy many of those Bee Line and other novels. Which is funny, because I have tried reading them now, and they all come across like garbage.
because I have tried reading them now, and they all come across like garbage.
I just finished "Total Control" by David Baldacci. It was published in 1997.
The only cell phone was a car phone. The internet was AOL and you connected with a dial-up modem. However, the story was really good. That didn't bother me. It was actually nostalgic.
One of the "new" things in the story was someone backing up everything so even though you deleted emails and files, they were still out there on the backups.
One of the problems, though, was there was this super hi-tech company with super hi-tech people working for it and their computers didn't require a password to get into. There was an encrypted disk that required a password, but not the computer itself.
"Total Control," the name of the novel, refers to the techies having total control over us. Pretty good foresight in the late 1990s.
I get that stories age, but I was actually talking about the old erotic books, like Beeline, Greenleaf, and the like. They seemed so sexy in the early 1980s, but today they are almost childish in quality.
I have downloaded several collections of them over the years, and I just can never bring myself to read them. I get a few pages in, and they are just horrible. Even much of what was posted on ASSTR 20 years ago is high quality compared to those.
Even without anachronistic and impossible items of technology.
They seemed so sexy in the early 1980s, but today they are almost childish in quality.
My wife has a masters degree in English Literature and Creative Writing so she read a gazillion books in college. Of course they were the classics. A while ago she decided to reread one. I think it was "Madam Bovary." She quit reading it. She found the writing stilted. Today's genre fiction is different than the classics.
The erotic books I liked when I was a teenager were "My Secret Life" (which is horribly written), "Story of O," and "Fanny Hill." I don't know if I'd like them now. I have them somewhere.
The ones I read before I gave up on the lot not only were poorly written but they went on and on about pubic hair and never a word about there being anything behind that hair, as if they were written by someone who had not seen a real live woman in person much less actually been with one.
...as if they were written by someone who had not seen a real live woman in person much less actually been with one.
You mean like descriptions of the hymen and it's supposed location halfway up a girl's or woman's vagina as described in numerous SOL stories?
I've encountered a couple where the author apparently believed that "clit" was a term for "vagina". Or something that one could insert a penis into, at any rate.
I've encountered a couple where the author apparently believed that "clit" was a term for "vagina". Or something that one could insert a penis into, at any rate.
Can't say I've encountered anything like that, but I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.
I've also seen drawn hentai porn involving penetration of the nipples.
I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.
I saw that in a porn video. I can't understand why anyone would do that! The health risk alone should be enough to veto it.
AJ
I can't understand why anyone would do that!
I don't either. At a bare minimum the victim would suffer permanent urinary incontinence.
I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.
I have seen a report by a nurse of a young couple (raised in very sheltered religious households) who actually thought that was where his penis was meant to enter.
I have seen a report by a nurse of a young couple (raised in very sheltered religious households) who actually thought that was where his penis was meant to enter.
A long time ago I read the same somewhere else but that was because the couple couldn't get pregnant because they thought anal was the normal way to do that.
No worse than the ones I read in here, which have the man entering a woman's cervix. Or banging against it and they love it.
Every time I read things like that I just shake my head.
