I wonder if he’s meeting AM.
RIP, Mr. Ellison. Thanks for the memories.
City on the edge of forever. Arguably the BEST of STTOS.
RIP Harlan
The wrong Ellison passed away.
I don’t know this Harlan Ellison guy, but I do remember that Len Wein used to write for Flash Comics, and I think Superman, if I recall. Slightly more realistic than Cary Bates, and didn’t get hung up on social issues (left) like Denny O’Neil did.
When I lived in Toronto, I went to see him speak one winter Sunday afternoon. This would have been around 1988-89.
He spoke for about 4 1/2 hours, appeared not to use any notes, and made for an absolutely wonderful experience.
I remember walking in with good weather and walking out in the middle of a blizzard.
I’d say rest in peace, but it wouldn’t suit you, Harlan. One of the greatest.
“Jeffty Is Five” - great short story by HE.
I grew up reading his books that I got from the local library.
Played baseball everyday from sun up to sun down and then read sci fi.
Good times, Vonnegut, Heinlein in the mix too.
Even L Ron Hubbard was outstanding.
rip
One of the greats of the genre. Sci fi is a desert these days.
RIP, A complete maniac, a unique voice. I wonder what the % of sci-fi fans today even recognize the name. Here’s a 1982 interview with him, Gene Wolfe and Isaac Asimov by Studs Terkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvcKB9vQO0
Freegards
ping
So sorry to hear this. Some sci fi fans and I were discussing him on Tuesday. In 1976 a friend and I traveled to LA for my first out of town convention. She wanted to see Harlan’s house. He was listed in the phone book and his house, in a curving hillside road, had a big sign “Ellison Wonderland”. Not exactly shy!
I remember him somewhat obscurely, if this is the guy I’m thinking of. He used to write for the L.A. weekly when I was in high school. Not a sci fi fan so I don’t remember any of that stuff but I remember once he wrote about judging a miss America contest and getting boners from all the contestants.... was this wrong to bring up on his eulogy thread? That’s all I remember about him. RIP.
Zathras remembers Harlan...
Technical Advisor for Babylon5
Hate to hear the sad news about his passing.
I was hooked on his stories after reading A Boy and his Dog.
RIP Mr Ellison
Two of his works that really impressed me were,
“A Boy and His Dog”, which could only be made into a movie in the weird sci-fi period of the 1970s. Starring a young Don Johnson, it is one of the most surreal post-apocalyptic movies ever made. Definitely only for adults. Ellison eventually wrote a prequel for it, a short story published in Playboy.
“Soldier From Tomorrow”, which was made into an episode of the original The Outer Limits called “Soldier”. One of their very influential episodes, of which they had many. Parts of it were adapted for the movie The Terminator, and eventually later prints of the movie gave him credit for it.
One of the colorful stories from his life:
Shortly after the release of Star Wars (1977), Ben Roberts contacted Ellison to develop a script based on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot short story collection for Warner Brothers.
In a meeting with the Head of Production at Warners, Robert Shapiro, Ellison concluded that Shapiro was commenting on the script without having read it and accused him of having the “intellectual and cranial capacity of an artichoke”.
Shortly afterwards, Ellison was dropped from the project. Without Ellison, the film came to a dead end, because subsequent scripts were unsatisfactory to potential directors.
After a change in studio heads, Warner allowed Ellison’s script to be serialized in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and published in book form. The 2004 film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, has no connection to Ellison’s script.
Oh, that’s too bad. He was one of my favorites when I was in high school.
RIP Harlan, I love your works and have read ALL of them!
Sad to hear.
Really, not particularly talented or intelligent or creative.
But one of the group.
Always sad. But none of us are immortal.