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Harlan Ellison

11 Comments

RIP.

In addition to the books and short stories, he wrote some Twilight Zone episodes, and Star Trek.

11 thoughts on “Harlan Ellison”

  1. I was going to commiserate with Turtledove, but he apparently blocked me after I expressed a difference of opinion regarding Trump. Ah, well … Harlan was a real character, and an important one.

    1. We had lunch with Harry and his wife at Jerry’s funeral, and he’s a great guy in person, but he’s an unrepentant Democrat. Kind of goes with his age and era.

  2. Harlan was the Pro Guest Of Honor at IguanaCon II, the 36th Annual World Science Fiction Convention, which I ended up running. He was my idea for who we should get for GoH. He was a prince as our GoH. Age 84? Well, not so bad a run….

  3. I didn’t know Harlan very well, just someone I exchanged words with at cons, but Harry, Jerry and I were fixtures on sff.net and GEnie before it, for more than 20 years. Harry was always willing to reconsider his opinions in venues that were not echo chambers, so it may be that he’s “unrepentent” as a way of keeping his head down. Jerry, on the other hand, argued tirelessly with me for a quarter of a century, until he won. I’m glad I got to say so before he died. My generation of SF writers and the stragglers of the one before it are slipping away now. The loss that stings the most is Gardner Dozois, who bought about 80% of my short fiction output over the years. We were both Fred Pohl discoveries, and Fred was also the one published Harlan’s “I Have No Mouth and I must Scream.”

    1. I hadn’t heard about Dozois. I think I bought every one of his annual “Year’s Best SF” anthologies. Now I know not to look for one this year .

  4. I enjoyed “Again Dangerous Visions” one of the S.F. writers I enjoyed from my youth.

    It would anger that he was a target of James Nicoll and his catty bunch of malicious gossips. They would link to a video of Harlan touching Connie Willis’ shoulder. From the way they described it, Harlan grabbed and yanked Connie’s tit.

    I guess anyone with a high profile will attract some abuse.

    1. I greatly enjoyed Ellison’s stories. Perhaps I wouldn’t want to revisit it, but as a kid, reading Deathbird blew me away. And also: what a character! He greatly amused my mother by flirting with her while also taking giving serious and thoughtful answers to her scholarly questions.

      But Hop, he did admit to touching Connie Willis’s breast:
      “I was unaware of any problem proceeding from my intendedly-childlike grabbing of Connie Willis’s left breast, as she was exhorting me to behave.”
      http://www.edrants.com/harlan-ellison-responds/

      And regardless of what he said, I think the video shows what he did quite clearly, and it shows part of the context in which he did it as well:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxd1jFDXzsU

      I think it was up to Connie Willis to assess how serious it was, and reportedly, she was completely pissed.
      Hearsay: https://scendan.livejournal.com/586135.html

      1. reportedly, she was completely pissed.

        Stipulating that Harlan could be an anal orifice, and leaving aside this particular incident, is there any limit to which someone’s feelings should grant them sufficient moral authority to deny due process? Just curious about your opinion about #MeToo.

        1. Due process is a requirement for government. We citizens have no such limitation on our actions.

          1. Paul, where private citizens don’t have legal limitations, we may still have ethical obligations, and I imagine that’s what Rand is asking about.

            Rand, I initially found Rand’s question confusing, because like Paul, I took “due process” to be a legal term, and I think you know I’m all for the rule of law. ( Lynching is always bad!) So I googled #MeToo and “due process” and discovered that “due process” is a signifier for a extra-legal but due-processs-like way of behaving in the face of an accusation. I found this article interesting:
            https://theestablishment.co/the-critics-of-metoo-and-the-due-process-fallacy-92870c87c0cd

            Of course, that’s not an answer to your question, but hey, it was a long day for me, and I’ll have to sleep on it.

          2. Paul, in case you don’t feel like clicking, here’s a working definition from the link I provided: “Due process sounds great in theory. Zephyr Teachout, former Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York, defined it as “a fair, full investigation, with a chance for the accused to respond” in her recent New York Times op-ed on this topic. It’s hard to argue with that.

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