# Any word about "Last Dangerous Visions" finally getting Published? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 8, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318 "2008-12-08T23:14:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/21 "2008-12-09T15:49:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It’s amazing someone hasn’t forced the issue legally by taking back their story and getting it printed elsewhere. Let Harlan sue. The fact that there has been zero effort to get the book published in the last century would serve as evidence of Harlan’s “malfeasance,” and might get all the contracts voided. IIRC, Priest wrote in his book that some authors had, but fairly few compared to the sheer number Ellison had signed on. I can’t say I’m that surprised, since it involves talk of legal matters and pissing off someone who from all appearances can really hold a grudge. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/22 "2008-12-09T15:52:22Z")
I’ve been assuming for the past 20 years that the reason it hasn’t been published is that the moving idea behind it does not make sense anymore. There are no longer any dangerous visions. Nothing is beyond the pale in mainstream publishing these days so how could put out a collection of stories that push the envelope in either form or content? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/23 "2008-12-09T17:16:55Z")
My favorite quote from the introduction to the second “Dangerous Visions” collection: “The only story I rejected outright was about a snot vampire. _Now_ pillory the editor for being closed-minded!” ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/24 "2008-12-09T17:30:01Z")
The [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Dangerous_Visions) article on LDV has a section on stories that have been published. At least a couple have appeared just this year. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/25 "2008-12-09T17:50:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Has there ever been a reasonable explanation as to why he’s being such a dick about this one? Because _Chinese Democracy_ has gotten mixed reviews. Or, more broadly, because any project that gets talked about long enough aquires a level of expectation that no reality can fulfill. If Ellison were to actually release the book at this point, there would be more than a few people who would say that it wasn’t good enough to justify a thirty-five year wait. What book could be? Especially when the genre has moved so much during those years. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/26 "2008-12-09T21:04:51Z")
Don’t have the book in front of me but IIRC in the Orson Scott Card collection where his submission to TLDV was published, he said that Ellison offered the rights back to him. No legal threats, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/27 "2008-12-09T22:08:35Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Some of the stories have been published elsewhere (another nail in LDV’s coffin). I just recently read John Varley’s contribution, which was pretty damn creepy. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it involved pedophilia and presented it as a positive thing. Every single thing I’ve read by Varley (five stories in all) have had something telling the reader that a forty year old having sex with a twelve year old is a good time for everyone involved… ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/28 "2008-12-09T22:39:13Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > I’m going to go out on a limb and say it involved pedophilia and presented it as a positive thing. Every single thing I’ve read by Varley (five stories in all) have had something telling the reader that a forty year old having sex with a twelve year old is a good time for everyone involved… I know what you mean, but no, this one is about a serial killer who targets pregnant women. As a man I was squicked out by it; if I were a woman I think I’d shred the book. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/29 "2008-12-09T23:09:38Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > If he ever does actually publish it, they’re going to have to retitle it, “At Last! Dangerous Visions” Wow, that made me laugh! It’s sad that so many of these may never see the light of day. I’m currently rereading the first two collections. I’d forgotten how good most of them are. I’ll try to track down the ones from “Last” that have been published elsewhere. I certainly hope many of these will get published after Harlan is gone. Sounds like he’s not set against them being published. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/30 "2008-12-09T23:14:13Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It’s amazing someone hasn’t forced the issue legally by taking back their story and getting it printed elsewhere. Let Harlan sue. The fact that there has been zero effort to get the book published in the last century would serve as evidence of Harlan’s “malfeasance,” and might get all the contracts voided. I’d just love to see the essay that would result from someone doing this to Harlan. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/31 "2008-12-10T01:02:40Z")
So would I, actually. He’s kind of being a dick and a bit of a bully. Throwing a punch at him in print would be awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/32 "2008-12-10T15:22:53Z")
Harlan offers the rights back to any author who requests it. He tries to talk them out of it, but he’s never refused if they insisted. Harlan is a dick about many things, but not this particular one. He’s also given out at least three sets of advances on the stories, from the times when he sold the anthology to a new publisher and got a new advance. So the authors have gotten more than the usual payment for a story. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have been better off if the stories had appeared and they could have resold them many more times. I personally don’t believe that the anthology will ever appear. I was at the Clarion writers workshop at which he started buying stories for it. The authors were mostly smartass punks (we all were in different ways, but these were the assiest 🙂 ) and they were writing “cool” stories for the early 1970s. They were unreadable then; they were be acutely embarrassing today. In fact, I have a friend who had the misfortune of selling Harlan the very first story he bought for LDV. He hasn’t mentioned the book in a decade, maybe two, so I assume it’s been that long since any new news came out about it. He also has no idea why it’s never appeared. I think it became obsolete in the 1970s and Harlan’s pride wouldn’t let him admit it, but that’s total speculation. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/33 "2008-12-10T17:04:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Harlan offers the rights back to any author who requests it. He tries to talk them out of it, but he’s never refused if they insisted. Harlan is a dick about many things, but not this particular one. Ellison has not choice in the matter. His legal rights to publish these stories have all long since expired. So the authors (or their estates) do not need his permission. So “trying to talk them out of” selling these stories elsewhere is all Ellison can do at this point. As for being a dick about it, NESFA published “Himself in Anachron” in a Cordwainer Smith retrospective in 1993 (after Ellison had been holding it unpublished for over twenty years and his rights had expired). Ellison’s response was to publically state _“Pull the goddam book off sale now, pulp the son of a bitch, republish without that story, or I’m going to sue you, NESFA, and every one of you into oblivion!”_ Perhaps recognizing he had no legal basis for an actual lawsuit, Ellison also stated _“At the moment, I have the need to kill the people at NESFA.”_ In a rare moment of restraint, Ellison did not threaten the author’s widow who owned the rights and had sold them to NESFA. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/34 "2008-12-10T22:28:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > He also has no idea why it’s never appeared. I think it became obsolete in the 1970s and Harlan’s pride wouldn’t let him admit it, but that’s total speculation. I think the concept was showing cracks by the time _Again, Dangerous Visions_ appeared. The good ideas from the concept were being absorbed into the mainstream, the bad ones were being ignored, and editorial resistance to them was reduced (or in the case of Campbell, passed away). The concept of the dangerous story was greatly reduced in just those few years between the original anthology and the second. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/35 "2008-12-11T01:24:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ellison has not choice in the matter. His legal rights to publish these stories have all long since expired. So the authors (or their estates) do not need his permission. So “trying to talk them out of” selling these stories elsewhere is all Ellison can do at this point. > > As for being a dick about it, NESFA published “Himself in Anachron” in a Cordwainer Smith retrospective in 1993 (after Ellison had been holding it unpublished for over twenty years and his rights had expired). Ellison’s response was to publically state _“Pull the goddam book off sale now, pulp the son of a bitch, republish without that story, or I’m going to sue you, NESFA, and every one of you into oblivion!”_ Perhaps recognizing he had no legal basis for an actual lawsuit, Ellison also stated _“At the moment, I have the need to kill the people at NESFA.”_ In a rare moment of restraint, Ellison did not threaten the author’s widow who owned the rights and had sold them to NESFA. Since Smith was long dead and his widow sent the story to NESFA without notifying Harlan or requesting permission, this is obviously a different situation from Harlan dealing with a author who contacts him personally. I don’t know the details of the settlement that resulted, so I can’t comment on it. Nothing about this odd case invalidates my statement, though. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318/36 "2008-12-11T03:39:39Z")
The point is that all of Ellison’s original rights expired decades ago. So his granting authors “permission” to sell the stories elsewhere is about as meaningful a gesture as me granting them permission to sell the stories. The reality is that these authors sold Ellison the publication rights over thirty years ago and he failed to use those options. When the options expired, Ellison asked the authors to voluntarily renew them. This cycle has been repeated several times and some authors have decided to quit it and sell the stories elsewhere. When this happens, as I pointed out, Ellison reacts by publically threatening to sue and/or kill people. Ellison is not behaving magnanimously; he is acting like a petulant and spoiled child. Read Joe Haldeman’s introduction to “Fantasy for Six Electrodes and One Adrenaline Drip” which he finally had published in 2006. Haldeman has had a successful and acclaimed career in SF. But you can see he’s still bitter about this story. If it had been published back when he first wrote it, it would have been seen as a career-maker; Haldeman would have been credited with inventing cyberpunk and changing science fiction. But by the time the story was finally published, it had become dated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-word-about-last-dangerous-visions-finally-getting-published/476318.md?page=1)