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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
I think I would rank him as one of the better short story writers in SF. On the flip side though, I think he goes out of his way to be do and say outrageous things to get attention.
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Harlan started in SF as a fan, and was part of the group that called itself "Seventh Fandom" in the early 1960s. Fandom was a comforting place for a short skinny Jewish kid from the Midwest, growing up in a time and place where anti-Semitism was far more virulent than it is today, and being a Jew was not a safe thing. In fandom, he was accepted, and his writing skills valued.
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I certainly think he is too much of a prima donna to have ever been a screen writer.
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He was a screen writer, coming to attention with produced scripts for the original Star Trek series. Being a prima donna is hardly out of character in film or TV.
That came later. Aside from the SF short stories that made his reputation, there was some mainstream work such as _The Juvies_, a fictional portrait of a teenage street gang in Brooklyn, which got praise from Dorothy Parker in the New Yorker. Harlan claimed to have run with a gang to do research for the book. (I have it. Good stuff.)
There have also been a couple of collections of TV reviews he did for the old "underground" paper, Los Angeles Free Press, back in the late 60's/early 70's.
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I also can't help but wonder if all of this boils down to him crying for attention...
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It would not be out of character.
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Dennis