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Harlan Ellison

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Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific speculative fiction writer of short stories, novellas, and criticism. His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of Star Trek, edited the award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions and served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5.

Although he disdains being labeled a science fiction writer, Ellison is active in the science fiction community and sometimes makes appearances at science fiction conventions.

Biography

Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949 following the death of Ellison's father. Ellison left home in his youth and became a drifter, working various jobs. He briefly attended Ohio State University. In the mid 1950s, he began to sell science fiction stories to pulp magazines. He was drafted into the army and served from 1957 to 1959. Afterwards, he briefly edited Rogue magazine. He subsequently began to sell scripts to television and publish short pieces, fiction and nonfiction, in various publications. He moved to California in 1962.

He was hired and worked very briefly as a writer for Walt Disney Studios, but was fired on his first day after being overheard by Roy O. Disney in the studio commissary joking about making a pornographic animated film featuring Disney characters.

Ellison has written for several science fiction television series, including the original Outer Limits series, the original Star Trek series, and the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone.

He has received many awards for both his fiction and television work. He served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5. The screenplay for his projected television series The Starlost was given a Writers Guild Award, though the actual series was so altered by the producers that Ellison had his name removed from the credits.

One of his most famous stories is "'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman", a celebration of civil disobedience against repressive authority. He has also written large amounts of non-fiction, including a book about his experience joining a gang (as research for a novel) in the late 1950s, Memos from Purgatory (which was adapted as an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the early 1960s and featured Walter Koenig, later of Star Trek fame), and several collections of essays about the TV and film industries. For many years college media studies programs have used The Glass Teat in television criticism classes.

He also edited the extremely influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions (1967), which collected stories commissioned by Ellison, accompanied by his commentary-laden biographical sketches of the authors. He challenged the authors to write stories at the edge of the genre, and Dangerous Visions is widely considered the greatest and most influential SF anthology of all time. Many of the stories went beyond the traditional boundaries of science fiction pioneered by respected old school editors such as John W. Campbell, Jr. As an editor, Ellison was influenced and inspired by experimentation in the popular literature of the time, such as the beats. A sequel, Again Dangerous Visions, was published in 1972.

A projected third book in the series, The Last Dangerous Visions, has become something of a legend in science fiction as the genre's most famous unpublished book (Ellison mentioned the book in the introduction to Again Dangerous Visions). Ellison himself has come under harsh criticism for his treatment of writers who submitted their stories to him, of which there are estimated to be nearly 150 (many of those authors have died in the subsequent three decades since the anthology was first announced). Ellison owns the first publication rights to the stories, which many consider to be highly ironic since Ellison himself has criticized the TV and movie studios for buying his scripts and then filing them away never to be seen again. In 1993 Ellison threatened to sue NESFA for publishing Himself in Anachron, a short story written by Cordwainer Smith and sold to Ellison for the book by his widow, but later reached an amicable settlement. Noted British SF author Christopher Priest has become Ellison's most prominent critic over the book, extensively critiqued Ellison's editorial practices in a widely-disseminated article titled The Book on the Edge of Forever .

Controversy

Ellison has a reputation for being outspoken and abrasive. His friend Isaac Asimov remarked of Ellison that, "he has no sense of tact whatsoever." As many people, including Ellison himself, have said, he does not suffer fools gladly. This reputation obtained a spot for him on the fledgling Sci-Fi Channel where he was given an opportunity to express his views on (presumably) whatever he wanted. It was eventually dropped.

In the 1980s, there was a widely-publicized incident in which Ellison physically assaulted author and critic Charles Platt at the Nebula Awards banquet over some critical commentary of Platt's. Platt did not pursue legal action against Ellison, and the two men signed a "non-aggression pact" later, promising never to discuss the incident again or have any contact with one another. In later years, however, Ellison often publicly boasted about the incident. This story is, of course, apocryphal and without any substantiation by those who claim it happened; i.e., court case numbers, documentation, etc.

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym "Cordwainer Bird" to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios. (See, e.g., Alan Smithee.) The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "Cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds." Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it seems appropriate — in that it can be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds". Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird."

Ellison recently gained attention for his April 24, 2000 lawsuit against Stephen Robertson for posting four of his stories to the Usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book without authorization. Included as defendants in the lawsuit were AOL and RemarQ, internet service providers whose involvement was running Usenet servers carrying the group in question and for failing to stop the alleged copyright infringers in accordance with the "Notice and Takedown Procedure" outlined in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Robertson and RemarQ settled the lawsuit with Ellison, though he pressed on with his suit against AOL. The AOL suit was settled in June 2004 under conditions which were not made public.

Books of Short Stories

Novels

Published screenplays and teleplays

See also Phoenix without Ashes, the novelization by Edward Bryant of the screenplay for the pilot episode of The Starlost, which includes a lengthy afterword by Ellison describing what happened in the production of that series.

Nonfiction

Anthologies edited

Selected Short Stories

  • "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"
  • "A Boy and his Dog" (made into a film)
  • "The Diagnosis of Dr. D'arqueAngel"
  • "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet"
  • "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"
  • "Jeffty Is Five"
  • "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World"
  • ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman"
  • "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin"
  • "Soldier": filmed as an Outer Limits episode. The film The Terminator had sufficient story element similarities that Ellison filed a lawsuit against James Cameron. Later prints of the film acknowledge the debt to Ellison.
  • "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs"

Awards won

Bradbury award

The Bradbury Award in 2000 went to Harlan Ellison and Yuri Rasovsky.

Bram Stoker Award

Hugo award

Locus poll award

Nebula award

Additional reading

External links

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