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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Harlan Ellison: my tiny hero...

  
 
Jack The Bodiless
15:38 / 07.06.02
Anyone else a fan?

If not, check this out...

"Why do people keep insisting that I join the 21st Century? I LIVE in the 21st Century! I just don't want to be bothered by the shitheads on the internet!" --- why Ellison doesn't have much of an online presence.

""Hey, gang!" I squeaked in my terrifically accurate Mickey voice. "Everybody ready to shoot the ultimate Disney flick? The film that rips the lid off the goody two-shoes hypocrisy that lies sweltering beneath the surface of G-rated true-life adventures? Okay, you guys, let's get that hand-held Arriflex right down there between Minnie's legs! I wanna see closeups of quivering labia!"" --- why Ellison lasted less than a day as a Disney staff writer.

"My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you CAN fight City Hall and WIN; that any action is better than no action, even if it's the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you're willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak BECOME strong." --- why Ellison doesn't make friends easily in politics

"...I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerilla warfare. I stir up the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyes water. I spend my life and miles of visceral material in a glorious and painful series of midnight raids against complacency. It is my lot to wake with anger every morning, to lie down at night even angrier. All in pursuit of one truth that lies at the core of every jot of fiction ever written: we are all in the same skin... but for the time it takes to read these stories I merely have the mouth..." --- why Ellison writes, and a good part of why he's my hero, from the introduction to 'Shatterday'.

He also wrote one of the best, and most heartbreaking short stories of all time, 'Jefty Is Five', anthologised in the above book. That, and around sixty-two books, over 1700 stories, essays, newpaper and magazine articles... for the younger uninitiated amongst you, think a cross between Bill Hicks, Grant Morrison and a mantrap, as prolific as a barman with four arms, and with more energy (even at sixty-eight) than the National Grid. And he's won more awards than I thought existed... the Poe (twice), the Stoker (thrice), the Nebula, (thrice) and the Hugo (eight and a half times) - those are just a few. He's even won a Grammy, for what THAT'S worth. The Nobel can only be around the corner... The man can really, seriously write.

Plus the best story titles EVER. 'The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World'. 'I Have No Mouth And Yet I Must Scream'. 'The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge' is one of my favourites, for some reason...

Then take into account the stories told about him... that he held off the son of a Mafia Kingpin with a Remington XP-100 rifle while wearing only a bath towel... travelled with the Rolling Stones... marched with Martin Luther King... investigated, tracked down and stalked his own stalker... and was thrown out on Sunday School for heresy. Amongst many other things.

He's one of few people I can truly say I fully and unreservedly admire.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:01 / 07.06.02
Yeah, he's a one-off, all right. There's this recurring vibe in his stories about people who don't live as hard as Harlan Ellison, so I get a sneaking feeling that he might admire himself a little too much but what the hey- I think if anyone ought to be allowed a little self-satisfaction it's him.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
17:40 / 07.06.02
Hmm. I've not read any Harlan Ellison, but I do have a brick-sized retrospective of his stuff that came out a couple of years (and has been used repeatedly to keep my laptop off my duvet so it won't overheat) ago. From what I've flicked through, he's Good Stuff (well, duh, as the post would indicate - but I'm currently stuck in the juvenilia section which isn't, as you'd expect, the greatest. I'm looking forward to reading more of it, though.

Oh, yeah - the retrospective thingo was republished last/this year. It's been ten years since my copy was printed, and is released under the name The Essential Ellison, I think...
 
 
Saint Keggers
18:13 / 07.06.02
While the only thing of H.E. ive read is his introduction to H.R Giger's Biomechanics (or was it Necronomicon?) I saw an interview with him on sci-fi and the future of the genre... he was telling how he had this one kid come up to him in tears because he didnt understand why people wouldnt publish any of his work and wanted to know what he had to do to get published. So H.E read some of his work and replied "Its quite simple..(and then screamed this part: Stop Writting Crap!!!"

Brilliant and to the point.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
19:01 / 07.06.02
You're probably right, MC, about him admiring the size of his own balls alittle too much - and about them being relatively big n' brassy, so there you go.

That kind of thing always reminds me of a Star Trek TNG novel I read when I was a nipper (kind of thing Ellison would LOATHE) - Picard lambasts Q in typical high-falutin' style over his arrogance... Q's reply naturally being, "I'm omnipotent, MORTAL... what's your excuse?"

Good news for fans, by the way... checked out harlanellison.com and the Edgeworks series White Wolf were doing (a complete authorised republishing of ALL of his work to date, with author's notes and new introductions) will be recommenced by the man himself from where they left off (they only got out volumes 1-4... still trying to find 2 and 3) in a self-publishing venture, now that he's bought the rights to his stuff back. About time... you can hardly buy anything of his in the UK...
 
 
DaveBCooper
11:03 / 11.06.02
Couldn’t agree more, Jack.
When people ask ‘who’s your favourite writer?’ I always answer Ellison, and they invariably look blankly at me.
The early 1970s UK collection of his work ‘All the Sounds of Fear’ bent my brain out of shape when I read it at about the age of 11, and if I ever meet HE, I’ll shake his hand and thank him. He’s one of the good ‘uns.
Need more writers like him, I say.

DBC
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:17 / 11.06.02
Damn right, Dave. More people who walk the walk, and have the talent and the chutzpah to back it up.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:03 / 11.06.02
That kind of thing always reminds me of a Star Trek TNG novel I read when I was a nipper (kind of thing Ellison would LOATHE)

Yes....he would despise it...nasty, shitty, mainstream Sci-FI. Then he would go and accept a "consultancy position" involving talking enthusiastically about how good Babylon 5 is and how he is really involved with it honest.

Yes....
 
 
DaveBCooper
13:38 / 11.06.02
I don’t know if Harlan dislikes mainstream SF – what with the B5 work, writing for the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, the original Star Trek series, and apparently attending script meetings for the first ST film, he doesn’t exactly shy away from it.

DBC
 
 
Stone Mirror
17:38 / 11.06.02
What Harlan objects to is things not going his way. He's got no problem involving himself with mainstream projects, but he's generally ready to bail at a moment's notice if he feels the need to get upset about the direction in which things are moving.

Look for original Star Trek episodes which have a script credit for "Cordwainer Bird": that's Harlan when he's annoyed.

He's definitely a unique kinda guy.
 
 
Irony of Ironies
19:38 / 11.06.02
Many, many American science fiction fans loathe Harlan. I mean, really, really hate the guy. However, given that these are the people who (1) think that Robert Heinlein is "a liberal" and (2) that Tolkein is "a great writer" then I'd imagine that Harlan couldn't give a rats ass about their opinions.

Ellison wrote two of the best science fiction short stories ever: "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" and "I have no mouth, and I must scream". His introductions to his short story collections are generally brilliant (check out the introduction - I forget to which collection - called "Reaping the Whirlwind" which features the immortal line "you killed me, you fuckers"). And he writes like an angel, all be it one that's done too much speed.
 
 
Trijhaos
19:42 / 11.06.02
Ellison wrote "I have no mouth and I must scream"? Neat. I played a demo of a game based upon that story. It seemed pretty interesting. What collections can I find this story in?
 
 
grant
20:42 / 11.06.02
Many, many American science fiction fans loathe Harlan. I mean, really, really hate the guy. However, given that these are the people who (1) think that Robert Heinlein is "a liberal" and (2) that Tolkein is "a great writer" then I'd imagine that Harlan couldn't give a rats ass about their opinions.

He also has a rep for making people cry at writing workshops. It's how he starts the session.
 
 
Irony of Ironies
20:51 / 11.06.02
Not sure what current collections have "I have no mouth" in them. There's a big set of collected short stories which will eventually run to about ten volumes or something ridiculous like that; I think only a few have been released, and I'm not sure it's in one of the released ones.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:07 / 12.06.02
You know, there's a thread in this about how fans tend to refer to their heroes by their first names, whereas writers and artists are generally referred to by surname...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:28 / 12.06.02
Ellison also wrote/writes some shit-hot essays and articles. The breezeblock-sized Essential Ellison contains many of them, including a fantastically angry and vituperative piece on the child beauty pagent industry.
 
 
DaveBCooper
13:15 / 12.06.02
The Essential Ellison is, indeed, essential.
And it has ‘Repent…’ and ‘I Have No Mouth…’ in it, as well as a whole load of other funky stuff.
Bit daunting at first (I think it’s probably the largest book I own), but once you break the surface, the depths are quite marvellous.

I call him Harlan because that’s what I’d call him if he came round for tea. I see what you mean, though – there’s a bit in Alan Moore’s intro to The Dark Knight Returns TPB (well, my old edition, anyway, dunno if it’s in the new ones) where he notes that he refers to Miller, and says that he hopes Frank’ll understand that it’s not something he’d do in person.

Anyone else here read ‘Partners in Wonder’, HE’s collection of collaborations ? Some startling stuff in it, such as work with (offhand memory) Bloch and Sturgeon…

DBC
 
 
betty woo
14:01 / 12.06.02
At one point I would have called myself a fan of Ellison; these days, I'm a little more abivalant. The "angry young man" stance has gotten tired, and I find that Ellison's later work too frequently re-treads the same ground that he's already gone over. Not to mention the frustration of buying a "new" collection, only to discover that I already own nine of the ten tales in other books.

Despite that, I'll always respect Ellison for his talent, solid body of work and stubborn workhorse ethic. My favorite Ellison work is usually light on the sci-fi aspects: stories like "Whimper of Whipped Dogs" and "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes", and especially his essays. "The Glass Teat" is worth reading for anyone with an interest in mass media critique (although they are somewhat dated now). He's got a wicked way with the snappy insult, too.

I've met him once: fuzzy bunny under a grizzly bear coat was my general impression. Oh, and I have a tattoo that reads "all the lies that are my life"; I keep meaning to send him $10 for the reprint rights on his title.
 
 
Stone Mirror
17:49 / 12.06.02
A well-known Harlan Ellison story (recounted by Isaac Asimov in his foreword to Ellison's Dangerous Visions) has to do with Harlan's activities organizing sci-fi cons before he bacame a writer. Asimov was the keynote speaker at one of these things, and Ellison, on a dare, walked up to him and said (in the sort of adoring tone for which Asimov was a complete sucker), "Are you Isaac Asimov?"

In avuncular fashion, Asimov smiled and replied, "Why yes, son, I am." At which point Harlan sneered back, "You aren't so hot" while all of his friends (who'd been witnessing this exchange from a distance) broke up laughing.

The following day, Asimov gave his keynote, and used his closing remarks to thank the organizers of the convention. When he got around to mentioning Harlan, Asimov stopped and called out, "Harlan! Why don't you stand on the fellow next to you so people can get a look at you?"

(You have to understand that Harlan is about five foot nothing, and extremely sensitive about it...)
 
 
Thjatsi
20:37 / 12.06.02
Neat. I played a demo of a game based upon that story. It seemed pretty interesting. What collections can I find this story in?

I found it in a collection called, "Alone Against the Future", if I remember correctly. Its a pretty brutal story, and has very little to do with the game. However, I think that it is very good, and definitely worth reading.
 
  
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