He arguably wrote his own epitaph. The closing narration of “Paladin of the Lost Hour”.
“Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment. A blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty: God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk.”
A friend of mine wrote the very first story Harlan bought for TLDV. I think it was early 1972.
He gave up hope a long time ago. But he got paid for it three times as Harlan moved publishers and got new advances.
So, is it possible that we might get a collection titled, “Well, here’s all the stories that Ellison was thinking about putting into The Last Dangerous Visions”? 
He was so angry at the massive edit that he published various versions of his scripts collected in a book.
Well, some. Many authors have formally rescinded their rights so they could publish their work elsewhere.
And many of the ones who didn’t wouldn’t want psychedelic stories from their salad years published in the light of the 21st century.
Maybe the book could be titled The Lost Dangerous Visions? Or The Late Dangerous Visions? Or The Not-So-Dangerous Anymore Visions?
Just a note for fans: Blood’s A Rover will be released this fall. It is the compiled version of all of the A Boy and His Dog material. Stories, game, interstitial material, everything in one unified volume. Given that Harlan left instructions to have all his notes and unfinished work destroyed, this will be the last book from him.
I really wish I could have gotten him to sign my copy of Doomsman. The last person I heard tried that, Ellison bought the book from him and then proceeded to tear it into shreds on the spot. (He did sign the Telepower half by Lee Hoffman, though, and gave it to the guy.)
Well, Kafka left the same instructions, and we know how that worked out…
And his version sucked. It was bad story, bad screenplay, and bad Star Trek. The show turned a POS screenplay into an awesome episode, no thanks to HE.
His version (IMO) kinda sucked (everyone was out of character for one thing). So did Roddenberry’s. The “collaboration” of the two produced one of the all-time great Star Trek episodes.
Bad enough to win the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama on Television.
And if he was wrong about there being an afterlife, would you want to be the one to confront the ghost of Harlan Ellison?
:: shrug :: Awards don’t make something good and they don’t change (or often account for) wildly out of character behavior. (Kirk doesn’t freeze in the face of a tough decision. That’s probably his number one trait–he acts, and to hell with the consequences. Spock doesn’t get in rage-filled screaming arguments, and certainly not with Kirk, and Kirk doesn’t say things like (paraphrased) “I wish I’d just left you there to be lynched” to Spock.)
Awards apparently also don’t realize that a script has to stay within a budget and Ellison’s script called for a whole new batch of ship sets to be built (for the Condor).
Plus the stupid subplot with the WWI guy (Trooper?) was just awful. I mean, it was terrible. Audience manipulation of the worst sort. Ellison knew better, he just didn’t seem to care.
:shrug: Eh. Mere quibbles.
I dislike Gene Roddenberry intensely, so any conflict between the two goes Harlan’s way by default. YMMV.
Harlan was Tuckerized in Ben Bova’s The Starcrossed, a thinly disguised novel about the making of The Starlost. Bova was technical advisor on the show and the entire book was based on his experiences. The character of Ron Gabriel was not just based on Harlan, it was Harlan. Bova and Ellison were friends – they collaborated on the short story “Brillo” – so I’m sure Ellison was.
Most people who follow Ellison’s career know that, when he felt a script had been ruined by the producers, he used the pseudonym “Cordwainer Bird.” “Cordwainer” from the great Cordwainer Smith and “Bird” because that’s what he was giving everyone.
But Ellison first used the name in a different context: as a character that showed up in an episode of Burke’s Law that Harlan wrote. Bird was played by Sammy Davis, Jr.
Well, I posted a memorial to Ellison on FB, and someone shit on it by bringing up the incident with Connie Willis which most of the people in this thread probably already know about.
Here’s my rebuttal to the guy, and you may or may not agree with my logic there, but I stand by my judgment that it was not “sexual assault.” It still wasn’t an appropriate thing for Ellison to have done, but I got very indignant that this person felt the need to bring that up on my post.
Isaac Asimov also modeled a character on Ellison, specifically Darius Just, who if the lead character in “Murder at the ABA”, and who also appears on one of the good doctor’s “Black Widowers” stories.
How is groping a woman’s breasr not sexual assault? Look, here’s the thing about Harlan Ellison. He was an asshole. He was rude, he was litigious, and just generally a jerk. He was also a brilliant writer, and his stuff inspired so many people.
That’s an entirely different discussion, but I tried to explain my thought process there in the linked post. The context matters, and while I would never, ever do something like what Ellison did, I still can’t put it in the same category as sexual assault. Again, I explained my reasoning; but if you don’t agree, you don’t agree.
