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krpalmerThere's a perpetual book sale table at my local bank branch. Most of the titles on it are mass-market paperbacks in genres I brush by, but I do keep looking. When I saw one book with the title "Bimbos of the Death Sun," it grabbed my attention just like I'm sure it was supposed to. Looking at the back cover explained it was actually a murder mystery set at a science fiction convention, looking inside the front cover explained its author Sharyn McCrumb's other novels were also mysteries, and that got my interest that much more. I bought the book, intrigued in a bit of "cross-pollination" I hadn't seen before, but as I read it I did get to wondering if it now was most interesting, or best viewed, as a historical artifact.
The edition I found begins with a "ten years later" introduction from McCrumb, explaining the book had first been published in the spring of 1987, after what had seemed a gestation of some length involving a number of visits to local science fiction conventions. I wasn't old enough to really know there were other "fans" back then, but from what I've looked back at I can wonder if the late 1980s were a relatively fallow period in between the "science fiction boom" Star Wars had kicked off and the rise of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its own follow-ups. There are plenty of Trekkies at the convention in the book (all fans of "The Original Series" and the early movies; they're not even arguing yet about anything else), and even a costumed stormtrooper or two (although one costume is described as made of "cardboard and white Styrofoam"; the "501st" might not approve), but I was also struck by how "literary" it was, even if the books the fans are reading are being dismissed as prefabricated fantasy. One thing that struck me as unusual, while still aligning with another certain interest of mine, was that there was a "computer room" at the convention; the computers didn't seem to be there for any purpose other than a science-fictional interest in high technology. I did happen to notice how it seemed full of IBM PCs, with Amigas and Atari STs and the "8-bit systems" surviving from the first half of the decade nowhere to be seen, although there was a threatening note laser-printed in the London font on a Macintosh, and some speculation the high postage bills of fans keeping in touch with each other would some day be replaced by electronic communication. (When I read about the convention's "video room," I did sort of hope it would get around to showing Dirty Pair or some other comparable animation from Japan, even if untranslated with fans resorting to synopsis booklets or even "shouting out" what was happening as certain perhaps-tall tales of the time have it, but maybe that was still too obscure for McCrumb to have noticed.)
With all of that, though, I was also conscious the generic fans were coming off with a distinct flavour of "obsessed with alternative realities because they barely function in the real variant." Some of it can be called "the opinion of a character within the story itself, not the author," but along with the elevated opinions of Marion Farley, a university professor who considers herself to have got over the worst of her awkward stage, there's also a bit of "omniscient narration" that describes the travails of a female fan trying to find companionship among the dubious picking available. With three different characters being "outsiders" of one way or another who get things explained to them (a Scottish folk singer who gets involved in "filk" and is also recruited to play Scotty at a Star Trek-themed wedding; James Owens Mega, who wrote a hard science fiction novel on "the effect of alien sunspots on computer circuits," and also on "the women at the research station," and had it published under the pen name "Jay Omega" with the title "Bimbos of the Death Sun"; and the police detective who investigates the murder), I did get to contemplating "outside perspectives" even as I considered other perspectives might seem unbalanced in the opposite direction. Then, though, I happened to notice the novel had first been published by TSR, Inc., the makers of Dungeons and Dragons (there's a game of it in the novel, but one that didn't seem as rule-focused as certain perspectives might seem to have it). For that matter too, after all of these thoughts I went back to the introduction and noticed McCrumb describing how "SF fandom discovered the book, and readers either loved it or were outraged by the description of fandom."
After all of that, I still haven't got to the murder. I suppose it might have only pointed out how I'm not that familiar with mysteries; the revelation of the murderer made sense, but I do seem to have missed the suspicions of the characters themselves that led them towards the solution. That could just mean the point of the story was elsewhere.
The edition I found begins with a "ten years later" introduction from McCrumb, explaining the book had first been published in the spring of 1987, after what had seemed a gestation of some length involving a number of visits to local science fiction conventions. I wasn't old enough to really know there were other "fans" back then, but from what I've looked back at I can wonder if the late 1980s were a relatively fallow period in between the "science fiction boom" Star Wars had kicked off and the rise of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its own follow-ups. There are plenty of Trekkies at the convention in the book (all fans of "The Original Series" and the early movies; they're not even arguing yet about anything else), and even a costumed stormtrooper or two (although one costume is described as made of "cardboard and white Styrofoam"; the "501st" might not approve), but I was also struck by how "literary" it was, even if the books the fans are reading are being dismissed as prefabricated fantasy. One thing that struck me as unusual, while still aligning with another certain interest of mine, was that there was a "computer room" at the convention; the computers didn't seem to be there for any purpose other than a science-fictional interest in high technology. I did happen to notice how it seemed full of IBM PCs, with Amigas and Atari STs and the "8-bit systems" surviving from the first half of the decade nowhere to be seen, although there was a threatening note laser-printed in the London font on a Macintosh, and some speculation the high postage bills of fans keeping in touch with each other would some day be replaced by electronic communication. (When I read about the convention's "video room," I did sort of hope it would get around to showing Dirty Pair or some other comparable animation from Japan, even if untranslated with fans resorting to synopsis booklets or even "shouting out" what was happening as certain perhaps-tall tales of the time have it, but maybe that was still too obscure for McCrumb to have noticed.)
With all of that, though, I was also conscious the generic fans were coming off with a distinct flavour of "obsessed with alternative realities because they barely function in the real variant." Some of it can be called "the opinion of a character within the story itself, not the author," but along with the elevated opinions of Marion Farley, a university professor who considers herself to have got over the worst of her awkward stage, there's also a bit of "omniscient narration" that describes the travails of a female fan trying to find companionship among the dubious picking available. With three different characters being "outsiders" of one way or another who get things explained to them (a Scottish folk singer who gets involved in "filk" and is also recruited to play Scotty at a Star Trek-themed wedding; James Owens Mega, who wrote a hard science fiction novel on "the effect of alien sunspots on computer circuits," and also on "the women at the research station," and had it published under the pen name "Jay Omega" with the title "Bimbos of the Death Sun"; and the police detective who investigates the murder), I did get to contemplating "outside perspectives" even as I considered other perspectives might seem unbalanced in the opposite direction. Then, though, I happened to notice the novel had first been published by TSR, Inc., the makers of Dungeons and Dragons (there's a game of it in the novel, but one that didn't seem as rule-focused as certain perspectives might seem to have it). For that matter too, after all of these thoughts I went back to the introduction and noticed McCrumb describing how "SF fandom discovered the book, and readers either loved it or were outraged by the description of fandom."
After all of that, I still haven't got to the murder. I suppose it might have only pointed out how I'm not that familiar with mysteries; the revelation of the murderer made sense, but I do seem to have missed the suspicions of the characters themselves that led them towards the solution. That could just mean the point of the story was elsewhere.