Harlan Ellison, the late great and rebellious “bad boy” of science fiction, may be due for a major revival of his works.
Ellison, whose Hugo-winning 1965 story “’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” was inducted in 2015 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, certainly deserves the recognition and new readership.
File 770 reports that the renewed interest in Ellison and the plans for his “posthumous comeback” are largely due to the efforts of writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski. For starters, Straczynski has edited Greatest Hits, a recently published new Ellison story collection.
And later in 2024, Straczynski plans to publish The Last Dangerous Visions – according to a Los Angeles Times story, the “long-promised, long-controversial and never-delivered” third and final volume in Ellison’s landmark anthology series of provocative short fiction.
A RAVE REVIEW
Meanwhile, in the LA Review of Books, Greg Cwik praised Ellison in his review of Harlan Ellison’s ‘Greatest Hits,’ the new Ellison compilation edited by Straczynski.
“Ellison wrote like a man suffering from perpetual fever hallucinations, his stories governed by an inimitable eerie logic,” Cwik wrote.
“Ellison’s writing has the electric shock of a malfunctioning machine, words like sparks spraying out. Yet there is humanity — bitter, yes, and often mean, with lust for life unrequited by the vicissitudes of fate, but Ellison’s best work is endowed with the spirit of man with a big, bruised, beating heart. He was a man fascinated by and disappointed with the society roiling around him, and thus his characters are also often denied penance and peace.”
STRACZYNSKI’S MISSION
Straczynski, an old friend of Ellison’s and executor of his estate, is perhaps best known as creator and sole writer of Babylon Five throughout its five syndicated seasons.
He’s clearly a man on a mission, one that reflects his admiration and gratitude for Ellison’s achievements and mentorship and his desire to introduce Ellison’s works to new generations.
“For Straczynski, 69, Ellison was not just a friend but a father figure of lasting impact. His real father, he says, “was complete shit.” Another executor would have simply liquidated Ellison’s assets, donated them to a favorite charity and moved on. But Straczynski has taken on a bigger mission — to return Ellison’s name to prominence,” according to the Los Angeles Times story by Steve Appleford.
Ellison, who died in 2018 at the age of 84, was hailed as a leading writer of science fiction nearly throughout his long life and career – although he preferred the less restrictive label of writing “speculative fiction,” Appleford wrote.
A FEISTY FIGHTER FOR WRITER’S RIGHTS
“He was, as Straczynski now describes him, ‘a brightly colored fast-moving object.”’Standing 5 feet, 5 inches, Ellison battled hard for the rights of Hollywood writers and had a hair-trigger for filing lawsuits.
“(He was paid a settlement by the film studio behind The Terminator after claiming the film was suspiciously similar to a 1964 episode he wrote for The Outer Limits. Writer-director James Cameron has always denied the allegation.)
‘“Pay the writer!” was Ellison’s mantra and his calling. His earliest public battle may have been his appearance in Gay Talese’s famous Esquire article “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” where Ellison and the crooner had a memorable conflict inside a Beverly Hills club and nearly came to blows.’
“During the 1960s and ’70s, Ellison was as influential in his time as sci-fi giants Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert, but since his death there is little evidence in most bookstores that he ever existed.”
Straczynski hopes that republishing Ellison’s greatest works, finally completing his Dangerous Visions anthology series and adapting more of Ellison’s works to the screen will change that.
Here’s hoping that Straczynski will help make it so.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
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