Harlan Ellison is Dead

Harlan Ellison was a petty, vengeful, and all around unpleasant man who was also one of the greatest writers of science-fiction (never "sci-fi") of the twentieth century.  As timid young person, who wished I could a fraction as outspoken or self-assured, I adored him from afar. From afar is the important part. I suspect that if I'd ever met the man in person I would have hated him immediately.  

Ellison was the kind of person who was frequently terrible, but so entertaining in his horribleness, and often so principled in his awfulness, you just had to admire him.  More than for his contributions to English literature, I loved him for his unrelenting support for the rights of authors and creative people - often backed by insane acts of stubbornness.  Everyone had a story about Harlan Ellison going too far. There was the time he sent 213 bricks to a publisher he was having a contract dispute with, followed by a dead gopher via fourth-class mail.  There was the time a fight with an ABC censor resulted in the censor having his pelvis broken by a model submarine. There was the time Ellison was fired from Disney on his very first day for jokingly pitching a porno featuring Mickey Mouse.  There was the time he called Oreo cookies the "baked good personification of the anti-Christ." There was the time he groped Connie Willis onstage during an awards ceremony. That was a bad one.

And then, famously, there were the lawsuits.  The man never met a grudge he didn't like. He sued James Cameron to get credit for concepts in "The Terminator" that were purportedly lifted from Ellison's episodes of "The Outer Limits."  He sued AOL after users posted some of his stories to Usenet newsgroups in the early days of the internet. He sued the owners of the film "In Time," sight unseen, upon learning that it had some superficial similarities to his famous short story, "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman."  He harped on the changes made on his initial script for the classic "Star Trek" episode "City on the Edge of Forever" for decades. Once he felt he was wronged, Ellison couldn't keep quiet. He even wrote an infamous essay, "Xenogenesis," attacking certain science-fiction fans for the awful liberties they took during interactions with various authors.    

In addition to "Star Trek" and "The Outer Limits," Ellison also contributed to  the 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone," "Babylon Five," "Burke's Law," and several other television programs.  He also created a series called "The Starlost" that he ended up disavowing completely. Due to his aggressive insistence on retaining creative control of his work, few of his stories have been adapted.  The film version of "A Boy and his Dog" was one of the biggest exceptions, which kept the controversial ending, but made other changes that Ellison predictably hated. I wonder if we'll see film versions of "Repent, Harlequin!" and the rest, now that Ellison is gone.  What about the last volume of his anthology series "Dangerous Visions," for that matter?

Ellison was also a movie critic, off and on.  He wrote reviews and essays on current films for a number of publications in the 1970s and 1980s, many of them collected in "Watching."  He famously hated "Star Wars," and called out every scientific inaccuracy in science-fiction films he could spot. He spent significant time and effort charting what went wrong with the handling of of productions like "Brazil" and "Dune."  He did hand out positive marks to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and "Harry and the Hendersons," though, and was a fan of the old school "Doctor Who." As much as he seemed to hate media, he clearly loved it too.

It's his stories that will make him immortal, of course.  Vic and Blood, the Harlequin, Jeffty, AM, and the Beast that shouted "Love!" at the heart of the world are some of the most well known characters.  And then there's the Paladin of the Lost Hour, Jack the Ripper, Levendis, The Discarded, The Soldier, The Deathbird, and the man who was heavily into revenge.  And Harlan Ellison himself, of course, was his own greatest character, featuring in many stories and essays to this reader's delight and occasional revulsion. There will never be another one like him, and I find it very hard to say goodbye to that cranky, cantankerous, vertically-challenged, old bastard.   

Wherever you end up, give 'em hell Harlan.

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