RIP Harlan Ellison 1934-2018

Cantankerous, brilliant, caustic, learned, petty, proud, full of drama, and not a man to suffer fools.
Read his stuff. Because he was a LOT more than just "that guy who did that Star Trek episode."

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream still haunts me. I feel like I should play some KDM in his honor.

Sources say his death was justified as he no longer had a mouth, but was compelled to scream.

He was a hell of a writer.

I used to love his Andy Rooney-like segment on the old Sci Fi channel news show.

Definitely a challenging, sometimes confrontational but always compelling writer. One of my favorite works is Watching, his collection of film reviews and criticism. I’d call it very influential as to how I try to review things.

I was a huge fan of Ellison when I was younger, and still have great respect for his work. My favorite fiction collection of his was Strange Wine. I also liked his gang stories from early in his career, and I have a nice hardcover edition of Watching in my nicest bookcase.

Crushing, although it's been expected for some time now. He was easily one of the more inspirational writers I've ever read and met.

He was one of my favorites, easily in my top 3. He made it challenge to do so, but i really admired the guy.

Which Trek episode did he do?

Black Barney wrote: Which Trek episode did he do?

City On the Edge of Forever.

A couple of years ago I worked in the warehouse of a stationary/calendar/jigsaw puzzle publisher as a packer. One day I got an order for an Edward Gorey calendar to be sent to one Harlan Ellison. I went to the shipping guy and said, "I doubt there are many other Harlan Ellisons in Los Angeles, buying a Gorey calendar no less."

He said, "Let's take a look." We put the address into Google Maps and this is what came up:

Google Street View

"Yup, definitely him."

(Note: I didn't remember his address, but it is easily found online, which is where I found this. I did not just out his address.)

Josh Look wrote:

Black Barney wrote: Which Trek episode did he do?

City On the Edge of Forever.

I watched this somewhat recently. I remember walking away thinking "This is the greatest piece of Science Fiction ever made."

RIP

Michael Barnes wrote: I used to love his Andy Rooney-like segment on the old Sci Fi channel news show.

Definitely a challenging, sometimes confrontational but always compelling writer. One of my favorite works is Watching, his collection of film reviews and criticism. I’d call it very influential as to how I try to review things.

I don't feel great dunking on someone who's dead, but however great a writer he was, he also sounds like a top-drawer asshole. There's a video of him sexually assaulting a woman on stage doing the rounds on Twitter.



Apparently, other allegations dogged him throughout his life. You can separate a man's work from the man and celebrate that, but the man himself sounds pretty grim.

Where are the 70 billion future Earthlings?

MattDP wrote: I don't feel great dunking on someone who's dead, but however great a writer he was, he also sounds like a top-drawer asshole. There's a video of him sexually assaulting a woman on stage doing the rounds on Twitter.

Apparently, other allegations dogged him throughout his life. You can separate a man's work from the man and celebrate that, but the man himself sounds pretty grim.

It would be... unfortunate... to distill the man's life & times of 84 years and 1500+ short stories down to a "LOOK! LOOK! LOOK AT THIS FIFTY-SEVEN SECOND YOUTUBE CLIP! HE WAS A TOTAL ASSHOLE!"

I understand in our 'woke' modern world that a shticky routine at an unbearable Hugo Award presentation (that he himself later even apologized for) is enough to brand one of the best of his generation with a scarlet letter as some roving menace to polite society. However, I feel confident in saying that if the video camera was invented 100 years earlier, then everyone from Melville to Twain would be on the receiving end of one of these "I have no idea who the guy is, but he did a naughty thing once, so we should clearly strike his existence from the ledger of humanity and pay him no mind," style 'takedowns' coming from small people with small minds on Twitter who exist strictly to pass judgment on people they only heard about 5 minutes ago.

As for the shadowy "other allegations" that also apparently warrant being brought up when a great man dies, other than possessing a generally take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to people fucking with him & especially his work, I'm not sure what nefarious deeds are enough to tip the scales towards "fuck this guy in particular."

And if we need a perhaps more representative clip of the man, I would put up for your consideration:




(Full disclosure, I am an Ellison fanboy who is likely in no way impartial on this topic.)

PI’m not going to defend him, because you can’t nor should you. I’ve know about that video for years now, and I’ve struggled with the knowledge of it and my admiration of him since. I cut people loose from my own life for less than this, like finding out someone is a Trump supporter or even a Trump apologist, but I think the damage was already done and was so profound and so lasting when it comes to Harlan Ellison. I was introduced to his work when I was in high school, and it troubled me then, but returning to it and reading more of it later in life was rewarding. Still challenging, but rewarding. I read Dangerous Visions, which is still to this day perhaps the best collection of speculative fiction one can find, and I watched a ton of interviews with him. His opinions on pop culture and religion rang true with me and while some can dismiss it as him being a total asshole, I relate to his looking for a higher standard in people. And, of course, I found that video, and I’ve never known how to feel since. I should condemn him. I can’t bring myself to do it.