6 ms·

Harlan Ellison has died

187 points by mormegil 8y ago

DrStalker 8y ago
Does this mean The Last Dangerous Visions will finally be released? Harlan sat on this since the 70s, holding rights to all the stories to be included but never actually publishing it.
johan_larson 8y ago
If life were fair, Harlan Ellison would have been one of the best-paid writers in the United States, and an utter social outcast.
- selimthegrim 8y ago
  I think after he did that boob grab in public the latter wasn't too far off.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  I'd take that deal. On the Internet, people don't necessarily know that you're an ornery sumbitch, as long as you can keep in character.
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    Let me tell you about an ornery sumbitch I think you may currently love. https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-stimpy-underage-sexual-abuse https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-sti...
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Well... I liked milkshake duck, too, for those precious few seconds before I found out. As a kid, I never really knew much of anything about the people who produced what I consumed for entertainment, and didn't really care. TBH, the stuff he made after Ren and Stimpy is not as good, probably because there weren't as many people telling him what not to do, or a dearth of people powerful enough to make those recommendations stick. Monsters can make nice things. You just can't sacrifice the people of the village to them. When the artist is incapable of working well with others, they are limited in the art they can produce. They can write books, and mail the manuscript to their editors. They can make animated shorts and publish on the web. They can't make feature films or television series. They can't be the "face" for the publicity campaign. There's too much human interaction, and not enough corporate lawyers to hold their leash and give it the occasional tug. And you can't put them in charge of the project.
- coldtea 8y ago
  If life was fair, the traits that would make Harlan Ellison a "social outcast" would be more socially acceptable than the polite phoniness that is the norm...
debacle 8y ago
If history is a judge, this is something with which Harlan Ellison is not happy.
- geoelectric 8y ago
  To be fair, that was Harlan Ellison about most things. RIP, the magnificent bastard.
dcuthbertson 8y ago
I met him once, when I was a student at RPI, around 1980 (I don't remember exactly which year he visited). He was full of fire and anger, and told great stories. I only wish I had been smart enough then to seize some of his passion and irreverence and make it my own.
jalanco 8y ago
One of the truly greats. Perhaps my favorite short-story writer along with James Tiptree, Jr. Here are three stories you need to read right now if you haven't: 1. "Repent Harlequin," said the Ticktockman., 2. Jeffty is Five, and 3. I have no mouth and I must scream, which contains one of the most memorable similes that still sticks in my mind: "the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball." I'm doing this from memory but I think it's pretty close. And Isaac Asimov, who couldn't have been a more different writer from Ellison, really seemed (from his writings) to love the guy.
- ur-whale 8y ago
  Wasn't the razor blade slicing an eyeball originally from a 1929 French movie called "Un Chien Andalou"? Source: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-chien-andalou-is-a-real-eyeball-being-sliced/ https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-chien-a...
  - mkempe 8y ago
    Although it's classified as French, I think of it as a Spanish movie because of who made it: a 1929 silent surrealist short film by Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  It's worth pointing out that "James Tiptree, Jr." was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, who adopted a masculine pen name in order to get her work past editors who wouldn't otherwise have accepted/published submissions from a female author.
- tunesmith 8y ago
  Jeffty is Five was my first exposure to Ellison and I still remember the feeling of mundane horror I got. Such a great story. My other favorite was Eidolons. My second earliest memory of Ellison was Bruce Willis playing the main character in Shatterday when Twilight Zone got revived!
- westoncb 8y ago
kabdib 8y ago
Time to re-read Deathbird Stories. In one sitting. What a magnificent bastard, indeed.
- someguy12 8y ago
  Indeed. Deathbird Stories was my intro to Ellison; it completely blew my 20 year old mind.
vmilner 8y ago
Loved his (unmade) "I, Robot" screenplay.
LaserDiscMan 8y ago
'The 3 Most Important Things in Life': http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm Ellison worked at Disney for a total of 4 hours. :)
- wry_discontent 8y ago
  Having only read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, this isn't at all what I expected out of this. I'm going to read more of Ellison now.
  - angersock 8y ago
    THE!!TEDDY!!CRAZY!!SHOW is remarkably prescient.
- james-skemp 8y ago
  Having recently read that piece on the group that solved an unsolved who an unknown suicide was, I'm curious if anyone ever found a record of his second bit. Quick search didn't find anything. Not that I think he's lying, just curious. I was told about Ellison back in college, maybe 2001/2002, by a woman who worked the desk in the office I worked in. I think she lent me Dangerous Visions and then I slowly picked up most of his books. As of late I was disappointed that he didn't do much in the way of new stuff, instead releasing compilations of his older works.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  I so loved that essay. I think it was in Stalking the Nightmare? My favorite was the story with the girl going nuts because he was standing on her mother's white carpet. "Grail" is probably my favorite story from that collection. Note to self: time to re-read!
klenwell 8y ago
My favorite Harlan Ellison cameo, from Gay Talese's famous "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (someone alludes to it in TFA's comments): Frank Sinatra, leaning against the stool, sniffling a bit from his cold, could not take his eyes off the Game Warden boots. Once, after gazing at them for a few moments, he turned away; but now he was focused on them again. The owner of the boots, who was just standing in them watching the pool game, was named Harlan Ellison, a writer who had just completed work on a screenplay, The Oscar. Finally Sinatra could not contain himself. "Hey," he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp edge. "Those Italian boots?" "No," Ellison said. "Spanish?" "No." "Are they English boots?" "Look, I donno, man," Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning away again. You can find out how it ends here: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has...
- sethrin 8y ago
  Well, that was relatively interesting, but, ah, what exactly did I just read?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    An exchange between Sinatra and Harlan Ellison at a bar, as recorded by a journalist following Sinatra. Isn't it obvious? (not to mention that a link to the full story was given).
    - sethrin 8y ago
      Yes, and the fragment makes no more sense in context. The full story is, I read, notable for style, in some way that fails to be very current; I'm sure that it was a big change from Cronkite. However, it meanders more slowly than a lazy river, and seems to have been padded by anecdote to disguise the author's failure to actually interview Sinatra. But, I could be mistaken, so I may as well ask about why other people consider this significant. I very much appreciate your response, and I'm sure I hope my reasons for asking a question may meet with your approval.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
classichasclass 8y ago
Some presumably unintentional humour from the obit: "Ellison was married five times, with at least two of those marriages lasting only weeks or months. Survivors include his fifth wife, Susan Ann Toth." No one bore a grudge like him, and few were as talented.
e40 8y ago
[posted this on reddit, too] When I was a teenager, a long time ago, when there was one phone per floor and it was on a long ass cord so you could take it into any bedroom in the house... I got a call from Harlan Ellison. At 2am. I was a awake, but everyone else in the house was asleep. Including the person he wanted to talk with. Martin H. Greenberg and family were staying at my parent's house, because Martin was going to some SciFi convention in Lake Tahoe. I guess Harlan wanted to talk about that. I mentioned that it was 2am and everyone was asleep, but he said "wake him up." I did! Same trip, I got to drive Martin to Robert Silverberg's house (in Oakland). I took a bunch of my Silverberg books and he signed them. Got to shake his hand, be intimidated by his very large dogs, and longly look at his very young and beautiful girlfriend. She was probably a few years older than me. He had to be 50+ then, I'd guess. That was a good summer.
macintux 8y ago
Has JMS chimed in? I’m sure he has some great stories from working on B5. Update: his Twitter feed is full of commentary. https://twitter.com/straczynski https://twitter.com/straczynski Update 2: his Facebook eulogy is striking. https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459833/ https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459...
armitron 8y ago
This is one of the best interviews I've seen Harlan on, he's completely relaxed and mostly allowed to run with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM
xefer 8y ago
Did anyone else ever watch the TV show he had a hand in creating, “The Starlost”? It had a great premise and I loved it as a kid, but I think it only lasted one season.
- ConceptJunkie 8y ago
  I remember watching at least some of it when it first aired. I was 8 at the time. I've subsequently seen some of it on DVD. The effects were impressive for TV at the time, but are incredibly dated-looking now, but the premise was great.
eesmith 8y ago
I see people mention some of his best known works of fiction. For those who want to get a better sense of his personal views, try his non-fiction, like "The Glass Teat". ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat ).
angersock 8y ago
One of the only writers in the genre whose stories had both bells and teeth. And man, he worked, making many screenplays as well as stories. Rest well you magnificent bastard.
robotkdick 8y ago
Harlan Ellison has been hugely influential on fantasy writers including but not limited to J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman. According to Neil, he mostly decided to become a fiction writer after reading one of Harlan's collections of short stories. Rowling's Death Eaters seems to me to be a direct lift from Ellison's Flop Sweat but as they say, it's the highest form of flattery Excerpt: Figures in long black garments, with drawn cowls that covered their faces. And strange, sickly purple light, the faintest, most terrible glow, shining out from beneath the cowls. They stared in at her. She could see no eyes: but they were staring in at her. Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1028-1030). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. Ellison may also be the inspiration for some of Harry Potter's adventures in the shops of Diagon Alley. See Shoppe Keeper Excerpt: The sign proclaimed Shoppe of Wonders and beneath those words in curlicued but extremely readable Islamic calligraphy: Your Heart’s Desire. Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1593-1595). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.
- thebigspacefuck 8y ago
  Dementors, not death eaters. I've been reading through these books again and wondering how the heck J.K. came up with all this stuff and that makes a lot of sense.
felicopter 8y ago
This Variety piece doesn't do him justice in the least. For instance, the paragraph about his marriages is snarky and I suspect that the writer was unaware that, per Wikipedia, his final marriage ran ~32 years until death did them part. I expect that more knowledgeable pieces will be forthcoming. Harlan Ellison was one of a kind, and although I never had any contact with him[1] I really feel this loss. Even though his works are still with us (I have a bunch of his books, and so many of the stories are etched into my brain), he won't be challenging us the way he did. [1] Unless you count the time when in a crowded corridor I heard someone behind me saying "Wheelchair. Wheelchair." and moved out of the way – and it turned out to be Ellison walking with a young woman who was horribly embarrassed.
programd 8y ago
I saw him give a talk once. He told outrageous lies about himself. Half the audience believed him, and the other half really wanted to. He looked like he was enjoying himself. I considered him such a great writer that I went around telling people that I'd be willing to read anything he wrote, even his laundry list. Which led to the idea of asking to buy his laundry list and creating a website called "Harlan Ellison's Laundry List". I suspect it would have been magnificent. Sadly I never got around to it - too late now. Probably would not have worked anyway as he was said to be notoriously anti-computer in his life. Magnificent bastard indeed.
syngrog66 8y ago
RIP Harlan. the man who wrote the Star Trek masterpiece episode The City on the Edge of Forever

187 points by mormegil 8y ago

Does this mean The Last Dangerous Visions will finally be released? Harlan sat on this since the 70s, holding rights to all the stories to be included but never actually publishing it.

johan_larson 8y ago

If life were fair, Harlan Ellison would have been one of the best-paid writers in the United States, and an utter social outcast.

selimthegrim 8y ago
I think after he did that boob grab in public the latter wasn't too far off.
logfromblammo 8y ago
I'd take that deal. On the Internet, people don't necessarily know that you're an ornery sumbitch, as long as you can keep in character.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  Let me tell you about an ornery sumbitch I think you may currently love. https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-stimpy-underage-sexual-abuse https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-sti...
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    Well... I liked milkshake duck, too, for those precious few seconds before I found out. As a kid, I never really knew much of anything about the people who produced what I consumed for entertainment, and didn't really care. TBH, the stuff he made after Ren and Stimpy is not as good, probably because there weren't as many people telling him what not to do, or a dearth of people powerful enough to make those recommendations stick. Monsters can make nice things. You just can't sacrifice the people of the village to them. When the artist is incapable of working well with others, they are limited in the art they can produce. They can write books, and mail the manuscript to their editors. They can make animated shorts and publish on the web. They can't make feature films or television series. They can't be the "face" for the publicity campaign. There's too much human interaction, and not enough corporate lawyers to hold their leash and give it the occasional tug. And you can't put them in charge of the project.
coldtea 8y ago
If life was fair, the traits that would make Harlan Ellison a "social outcast" would be more socially acceptable than the polite phoniness that is the norm...

debacle 8y ago

If history is a judge, this is something with which Harlan Ellison is not happy.

geoelectric 8y ago
To be fair, that was Harlan Ellison about most things. RIP, the magnificent bastard.

dcuthbertson 8y ago

I met him once, when I was a student at RPI, around 1980 (I don't remember exactly which year he visited). He was full of fire and anger, and told great stories. I only wish I had been smart enough then to seize some of his passion and irreverence and make it my own.

jalanco 8y ago

One of the truly greats. Perhaps my favorite short-story writer along with James Tiptree, Jr. Here are three stories you need to read right now if you haven't: 1. "Repent Harlequin," said the Ticktockman., 2. Jeffty is Five, and 3. I have no mouth and I must scream, which contains one of the most memorable similes that still sticks in my mind: "the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball." I'm doing this from memory but I think it's pretty close. And Isaac Asimov, who couldn't have been a more different writer from Ellison, really seemed (from his writings) to love the guy.

ur-whale 8y ago
Wasn't the razor blade slicing an eyeball originally from a 1929 French movie called "Un Chien Andalou"? Source: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-chien-andalou-is-a-real-eyeball-being-sliced/ https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-chien-a...
- mkempe 8y ago
  Although it's classified as French, I think of it as a Spanish movie because of who made it: a 1929 silent surrealist short film by Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí.
ubernostrum 8y ago
It's worth pointing out that "James Tiptree, Jr." was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, who adopted a masculine pen name in order to get her work past editors who wouldn't otherwise have accepted/published submissions from a female author.
tunesmith 8y ago
Jeffty is Five was my first exposure to Ellison and I still remember the feeling of mundane horror I got. Such a great story. My other favorite was Eidolons. My second earliest memory of Ellison was Bruce Willis playing the main character in Shatterday when Twilight Zone got revived!
westoncb 8y ago

kabdib 8y ago

Time to re-read Deathbird Stories. In one sitting. What a magnificent bastard, indeed.

someguy12 8y ago
Indeed. Deathbird Stories was my intro to Ellison; it completely blew my 20 year old mind.

vmilner 8y ago

Loved his (unmade) "I, Robot" screenplay.

LaserDiscMan 8y ago

'The 3 Most Important Things in Life': http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm Ellison worked at Disney for a total of 4 hours. :)

wry_discontent 8y ago
Having only read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, this isn't at all what I expected out of this. I'm going to read more of Ellison now.
- angersock 8y ago
  THE!!TEDDY!!CRAZY!!SHOW is remarkably prescient.
james-skemp 8y ago
Having recently read that piece on the group that solved an unsolved who an unknown suicide was, I'm curious if anyone ever found a record of his second bit. Quick search didn't find anything. Not that I think he's lying, just curious. I was told about Ellison back in college, maybe 2001/2002, by a woman who worked the desk in the office I worked in. I think she lent me Dangerous Visions and then I slowly picked up most of his books. As of late I was disappointed that he didn't do much in the way of new stuff, instead releasing compilations of his older works.
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
I so loved that essay. I think it was in Stalking the Nightmare? My favorite was the story with the girl going nuts because he was standing on her mother's white carpet. "Grail" is probably my favorite story from that collection. Note to self: time to re-read!

klenwell 8y ago

My favorite Harlan Ellison cameo, from Gay Talese's famous "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (someone alludes to it in TFA's comments): Frank Sinatra, leaning against the stool, sniffling a bit from his cold, could not take his eyes off the Game Warden boots. Once, after gazing at them for a few moments, he turned away; but now he was focused on them again. The owner of the boots, who was just standing in them watching the pool game, was named Harlan Ellison, a writer who had just completed work on a screenplay, The Oscar. Finally Sinatra could not contain himself. "Hey," he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp edge. "Those Italian boots?" "No," Ellison said. "Spanish?" "No." "Are they English boots?" "Look, I donno, man," Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning away again. You can find out how it ends here: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has...

sethrin 8y ago
Well, that was relatively interesting, but, ah, what exactly did I just read?
- coldtea 8y ago
  An exchange between Sinatra and Harlan Ellison at a bar, as recorded by a journalist following Sinatra. Isn't it obvious? (not to mention that a link to the full story was given).
  - sethrin 8y ago
    Yes, and the fragment makes no more sense in context. The full story is, I read, notable for style, in some way that fails to be very current; I'm sure that it was a big change from Cronkite. However, it meanders more slowly than a lazy river, and seems to have been padded by anecdote to disguise the author's failure to actually interview Sinatra. But, I could be mistaken, so I may as well ask about why other people consider this significant. I very much appreciate your response, and I'm sure I hope my reasons for asking a question may meet with your approval.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

classichasclass 8y ago

Some presumably unintentional humour from the obit: "Ellison was married five times, with at least two of those marriages lasting only weeks or months. Survivors include his fifth wife, Susan Ann Toth." No one bore a grudge like him, and few were as talented.

e40 8y ago

[posted this on reddit, too] When I was a teenager, a long time ago, when there was one phone per floor and it was on a long ass cord so you could take it into any bedroom in the house... I got a call from Harlan Ellison. At 2am. I was a awake, but everyone else in the house was asleep. Including the person he wanted to talk with. Martin H. Greenberg and family were staying at my parent's house, because Martin was going to some SciFi convention in Lake Tahoe. I guess Harlan wanted to talk about that. I mentioned that it was 2am and everyone was asleep, but he said "wake him up." I did! Same trip, I got to drive Martin to Robert Silverberg's house (in Oakland). I took a bunch of my Silverberg books and he signed them. Got to shake his hand, be intimidated by his very large dogs, and longly look at his very young and beautiful girlfriend. She was probably a few years older than me. He had to be 50+ then, I'd guess. That was a good summer.

macintux 8y ago

Has JMS chimed in? I’m sure he has some great stories from working on B5. Update: his Twitter feed is full of commentary. https://twitter.com/straczynski https://twitter.com/straczynski Update 2: his Facebook eulogy is striking. https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459833/ https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459...

armitron 8y ago

This is one of the best interviews I've seen Harlan on, he's completely relaxed and mostly allowed to run with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM

xefer 8y ago

Did anyone else ever watch the TV show he had a hand in creating, “The Starlost”? It had a great premise and I loved it as a kid, but I think it only lasted one season.

ConceptJunkie 8y ago
I remember watching at least some of it when it first aired. I was 8 at the time. I've subsequently seen some of it on DVD. The effects were impressive for TV at the time, but are incredibly dated-looking now, but the premise was great.

eesmith 8y ago

I see people mention some of his best known works of fiction. For those who want to get a better sense of his personal views, try his non-fiction, like "The Glass Teat". ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat ).

angersock 8y ago

One of the only writers in the genre whose stories had both bells and teeth. And man, he worked, making many screenplays as well as stories. Rest well you magnificent bastard.

robotkdick 8y ago

Harlan Ellison has been hugely influential on fantasy writers including but not limited to J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman. According to Neil, he mostly decided to become a fiction writer after reading one of Harlan's collections of short stories. Rowling's Death Eaters seems to me to be a direct lift from Ellison's Flop Sweat but as they say, it's the highest form of flattery Excerpt: Figures in long black garments, with drawn cowls that covered their faces. And strange, sickly purple light, the faintest, most terrible glow, shining out from beneath the cowls. They stared in at her. She could see no eyes: but they were staring in at her. Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1028-1030). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. Ellison may also be the inspiration for some of Harry Potter's adventures in the shops of Diagon Alley. See Shoppe Keeper Excerpt: The sign proclaimed Shoppe of Wonders and beneath those words in curlicued but extremely readable Islamic calligraphy: Your Heart’s Desire. Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1593-1595). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

thebigspacefuck 8y ago
Dementors, not death eaters. I've been reading through these books again and wondering how the heck J.K. came up with all this stuff and that makes a lot of sense.

felicopter 8y ago

This Variety piece doesn't do him justice in the least. For instance, the paragraph about his marriages is snarky and I suspect that the writer was unaware that, per Wikipedia, his final marriage ran ~32 years until death did them part. I expect that more knowledgeable pieces will be forthcoming. Harlan Ellison was one of a kind, and although I never had any contact with him[1] I really feel this loss. Even though his works are still with us (I have a bunch of his books, and so many of the stories are etched into my brain), he won't be challenging us the way he did. [1] Unless you count the time when in a crowded corridor I heard someone behind me saying "Wheelchair. Wheelchair." and moved out of the way – and it turned out to be Ellison walking with a young woman who was horribly embarrassed.

programd 8y ago

I saw him give a talk once. He told outrageous lies about himself. Half the audience believed him, and the other half really wanted to. He looked like he was enjoying himself. I considered him such a great writer that I went around telling people that I'd be willing to read anything he wrote, even his laundry list. Which led to the idea of asking to buy his laundry list and creating a website called "Harlan Ellison's Laundry List". I suspect it would have been magnificent. Sadly I never got around to it - too late now. Probably would not have worked anyway as he was said to be notoriously anti-computer in his life. Magnificent bastard indeed.

syngrog66 8y ago

RIP Harlan. the man who wrote the Star Trek masterpiece episode The City on the Edge of Forever