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Science Fiction Writer Harlan Ellison Dies At 84 (variety.com)
Slashdot readers chill and mrflash818 have shared the news of Harlan Ellison's passing. Variety reports: Speculative-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who penned short stories, novellas and criticism, contributed to TV series including "The Outer Limits," "Star Trek" and "Babylon 5" and won a notable copyright infringement suit against ABC and Paramount and a settlement in a similar suit over "The Terminator," has died. He was 84. Christine Valada tweeted that Ellison's wife, Susan, had asked her to announce that he died in his sleep Thursday.
Dying at 84 in your sleep seems like an absolute win in my book. Now one can only hope that his life was a happy one.
RIP
One of the first sci-fi books I ever read as a kid was his collection Paingod, And Other Delusions. This included the title story as well as "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". I also had the issue of IF magazine containing the first publication of "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream".
And it would be a crime not to mention "The City On The Edge of Forever", which was quite possibly the very best Star Trek episode, ever.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
So, what happens to the legendary box with the stories? The one he'd been sitting on since 1973? The stories for the collection where a significant portion of the contributors had died of old age waiting for it to come out?
I guess we'll never see it.
"Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay that Became the Classic Star Trek Episode" (https://www.amazon.com/HARLAN-ELLISONS-CITY-EDGE-FOREVER/dp/B001MT932O).
If you liked Ellison's work, make sure you DON'T read this book.
He was one angry dude when he wrote it and I don't believe it was justified. His anger is centred on Roddenberry's temerity in changing what was submitted AND his (irrational) belief that he should get a acknowledgement/royalty of all time-travelling stories (including "The Terminator"). Included in the book is the script he originally submitted and, I think to his chagrin, what ended up being broadcast was superior. If you find a copy of the book, definitely read the original script but skip over everything else, he comes across as unreasonably bitter and entitled.
Ellison had quite an interesting life, produced some excellent science fiction and viciously attacked those he felt denigrated or didn't appreciate this genius - this book is a great example of the latter.
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A great writer, but not a great human being. He sued the creators of The Terminator for copyright infringement, claiming that they stole the idea from his Outer Limits episode The Terminator.
I recently saw The Soldier, and it's absolutely not The Terminator. The only similarities are there's two soldiers that come back in time from the future, and continue the war here. All other details are completely different. One of them is NOT a robot, the come back accidentally, they don't want to change the future, there's no AI in the future ruling humanity, they don't even speak english, there's no female character they're trying to save/kill. Most of the plot isn't even the trying to kill each other, it's about trying to convert one of the soldiers into a non-soldier.
But yeah, Harlan sued over it, and won an undisclosed amount of money out of court, and a mention in the credits.
He's an interesting guy, not all good. There's a good documentary about him that at least used to be on Netflix:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_with_Sharp_Teeth
Look at how much cheese, cream and butter the French intake daily. Why aren't they known for being obese slobs like Americans are?
Clue: it's not natural fats and moderate consumption of alcohol that is bad. It's the shit you eat from boxes, bags and cans and all those bright colored drinks you swill down that makes you a sickly lard ass
Harlan was such an incandescent talent. It's difficult to adequately communicate the impact he had on science fiction in the late 1960's and early 1970's. As a writer, he was a true enfante terrible, who made his mark with groundbreaking stories like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, but it was as an editor that he truly changed the genre.
His breakthrough anthology Dangerous Visions was stuffed with original stories commissioned by him specifically for the volume from a phalanx of top-drawer authors. His charge to them was a simple one: don't just push the boundaries, go as far beyond them as you can. And they responded with alacrity, from Theodore Sturgeon's exploration of the social effects of mandatory incest If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister? to Philip Jose Farmer's hallucinatory conjuration of a future without jobs in Riders of the Purple Wage.
It was a seismic event in SF. Today's fans have no idea what an impact it made on the field.
The public Harlan was kind of a jerk. I witnessed him tear a teenage girl to tatters at a party at St. Louiscon for the unforgivable sin of asking him - very politely - for his autograph. She ran away in tears from the little man in the natty sports coat she so obviously idolized, while he seemed completely unaffected by the damage he'd inflicted on her.
I despised him for years afterward - until I learned that he had given a destitute and mortally ill Ted Sturgeon a place to live out his final days, and paid for his medical care, as well.
A great writer, a complex and often infuriating human being, and a man who left the world of science fiction a better and richer place for his having been a part of it. He will be missed ...
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