Slashdot Mirror
CNN Interviews with Harlan Ellison, Bruce Sterling
half_cocked_jack writes "Over at the CNN Podcast area they have a program titled 'Hollywood's SciFi Summer'. It sounded interesting, so I downloaded it. Much to my surprise, the host, Renay San Miguel, seems to really know SF, and he interviewed Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, Bruce Sterling, and Len Wein on their views on how Hollywood handles SF. Great listening!"
Ellison "prickly"? You must be using some meaning of the word "prickly" that I wasn't previously familiar with.
Harlan was a wicked, wicked young man. His readings at Worldcon in NYC in the late 60's and early 70's were the stuff of massive panel debates. AND, fawning admiration by most of the attendees.
I can remember one piece that Harlan read an overtly raw sex piece from the dais at the Commodore Hotel, around the time that he published "I see a man sitting in a chair and the chair is biting his leg" in a collaboration with Robert Sheckley. I recall that Sheckley, Gunn, and Silverberg were all onthe panel and a room full of college kids had their first exposure to erotic literature.
The man wrote, and read, brilliantly. Yes, he has short-man's syndrome, but in his defense, he has taste and style and a willingness to explore just about anything as a writer.
From his Dangerous Visions anthologies to his scripts for Demon with a Glass Hand and City on the Edge of Forever to The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat, Ellison has cranked out a lifetime's work nearly every year for the first 20 years of his professional life. Only Isaac Asimov was more prolific.
Ellison had a legitimate, hard fought, lawsuit for copyright violation. Companies were reprinting his work and selling it without paying any royalty and Ellison had every right to fight for his property rights.
See, http://harlanellison.com/home.htm/ for Ellison's (way out of date) home page and,
See, http://www.authorslawyer.com/c-ellison.shtml/ for the copyright action.
Ellison also discovered a lot of other writers, too, including Dan Simmons. While most people see his growly, larger-than-himself public persona, he can be an incredibly generous man. He called up one friend of mine who'd reviewed a story of his because Ellison wasn't sure he'd appreciated some of the subtlies of the story -- and then they talked for an hour. A guy I knew in college had written a complaining letter to him about why he was years late on a Star Trek project, and Ellison called him up to bitch back and explain, and then they talked like buddies for an hour. Interesting, talented guy.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Exactly. Prickly doesn't convey the proper image of Ellison.
An under-medicated, short curmudgeon, with distinct bi-polar and antisocial traits who used his personality as a birth control device is a somewhat more accurate description of the Ellison I know.
...back in the 80's. Hour 25 is now online-only, but it was a 2-hour Friday-night program on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, hosted by Mike Hodel and Mel Gilden, at the time, and Harlan was a frequent guest. No doubt, Eric Foss has the entire broadcast archived on tape somewhere.
From what I recall, Ellison said something like, "I attended a party in New York, along with some other writers, including L. Ron Hubbard, and Hubbard was saying something about 'Y'know what I should do? Invent a new religion. That's where all the real money is.' And, next thing you know, he came out with his next book, 'Dianetics'."
I have one of the collections of Ellison erotica written under the pen-name "Paul Merchant." I was able to get Ellison to sign it using his preferred nom de plume (which the publisher wouldn't let him use), D.S. Merchant (for Dirty Smut Merchant). I wasn't really sure how he would handle being handed a copy of Sex Gang at a signing, but he was in good spirits. He doesn't normally sign those, but he hadn't seen a copy in a while.
This sig intentionally left justified.