Harlan Ellison - Still Angry After All These Years

[kennyc]

short piece on Harlan. City on the Edge of Forever is my all time favorite Star Trek episode.

Harlan Ellison still angry, still writing at 81

By Nat Segaloff

Harlan Ellison is still an angry young man, except he’ll be 81 on May 27. He has used this anger, fueled by childhood anti-Semitism, throughout his extraordinary career as a writer of speculative fiction. This year saw the publication of his 116th and 117th (so far) books: The Top of the Volcano, a collection of his awardwinning short stories, and a graphic novelization of his original script for “The City on the Edge of Forever,” widely considered the best Star Trek episode ever written.
....

http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/new...ing_at_81.html

[Rizla]

Lol. Christopher Priest's journalistic piece on Forbidden Visions 3 can still be found on the waybackmachine.

[pwalker8]

Ellison has long been known as an angry man who will carry a grudge until it dies of old age and then have it stuffed and mounted on the fireplace mantle.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Lol. Christopher Priest's journalistic piece on Forbidden Visions 3 can still be found on the waybackmachine.

That's Dangerous Visions 3, or maybe Last Dangerous Visions. Yes, Ellison botched it big time on that. He's not the first nor the last anthologist to do so, and there are publishers that go bankrupt and mess up authors careers too. I don't know, but I hope Ellison's apologized to all the authors he let down. In any case, it's been something like 30 years, so if you're not one of the authors whose work Ellison tied up in that never delivered anthology, it's time to let it go.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

That's Dangerous Visions 3, or maybe Last Dangerous Visions. Yes, Ellison botched it big time on that. He's not the first nor the last anthologist to do so, and there are publishers that go bankrupt and mess up authors careers too. I don't know, but I hope Ellison's apologized to all the authors he let down. In any case, it's been something like 30 years, so if you're not one of the authors whose work Ellison tied up in that never delivered anthology, it's time to let it go.

Yeah, who cares. Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions are classics!

Let it go.

[fjtorres]

Irascible Harlan Ellison is his given name.
Single word.

[Fat Abe]

Nobody is perfect, especially writers who are haunted by the demons of the profession: dumb people, greed, plagiarism, and that elusive muse that drops ideas into the heads of authors. Mostly, she is emphemeral.

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Ellison has long been known as an angry man who will carry a grudge until it dies of old age and then have it stuffed and mounted on the fireplace mantle.

Wasn't he the first person to utter "Get off my Lawn"

[mr ploppy]

Like him or not, he was the man responsible for bringing the existence of ebooks to the masses. If he hadn't made a big fuss about someone living in a trailer (caravan) posting text files of his out of print books un usenet they would've stayed a novelty item for collectors of computer files.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

That's Dangerous Visions 3, or maybe Last Dangerous Visions. Yes, Ellison botched it big time on that. He's not the first nor the last anthologist to do so, and there are publishers that go bankrupt and mess up authors careers too. I don't know, but I hope Ellison's apologized to all the authors he let down. In any case, it's been something like 30 years, so if you're not one of the authors whose work Ellison tied up in that never delivered anthology, it's time to let it go.

Priest's piece is called The Book on the Edge of Forever which is a play on The City on the Edge of Forever which was a Star Trek episode penned by Ellison. The reviews on Amazon are great. About 30% are 1 star and decry the piece as mean and jealous. The pamphlet is kept in print by someone Ellison offended. Lol.

I read the earlier pre-publication version, and it seemed pretty fair to me. It was called The Last Deadloss Visions, and you can read it for free, here:

http://web.archive.org/web/200009022...s,Chris_Priest

In actual fact, I don't know why or even if Priest has a beef with Ellison. His piece seems quite cool and objective.

Disclaimer: I'm a fan of both authors work

[crich70]

He also had his name taken off The Starlost credits and Cordwainer Bird put on when he felt they butchered his concept. Of course a lot of special effect tech. didn't exist back then so how could reality match a written vision?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by crich70

He also had his name taken off The Starlost credits and Cordwainer Bird put on when he felt they butchered his concept. Of course a lot of special effect tech. didn't exist back then so how could reality match a written vision?

The special effects aren't necessarily why he had his name removed. The dumbing down of his concept is why he pulled out, from what I've read.

[Rizla]

I know he's written some good short stories, and some great TV, but I'm not aware of any great novels by him.

Loved The Other Limits episode The Demon with a Glass Hand. That's a classic. They used the same building in Bladerunner.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I know he's written some good short stories, and some great TV, but I'm not aware of any great novels by him.

Does that really matter though? You could say the same about O. Henry or Anton Chekhov or many others.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Does that really matter though? You could say the same about O. Henry or Anton Chekhov or many others.

O. Henry wrote TV?

To a certain extent, I suspect that Ellison really enjoyed being a bad-boy "artist". Of course, back when he was most active, authors made their money selling short stories to magazines. Quite a few also wrote screenplays since that was another fairly lucrative field. He did seem to be unable to make the move to novels as they became more popular. A bit like many of the silent movie greats never were able to make the move to talkies.