# How is Harlan Ellison regarded as a writer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686 "2009-04-02T05:03:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/61 "2009-04-04T03:21:35Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I am torn between outrage and sorrow at the Sci-Fi/Syfy channel. It could have been so great, and yet it is so awful, and it creates awfulness, and mundanes think that it IS science fiction. And what it did to Earthsea was an abomination unto any god you care to name. Yes, but it has its one moment in the sun with the new BSG, which kinda makes it worth it. We can only hope that they manage to inadvertently stumble upon gold again someday. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/62 "2009-04-04T03:46:53Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > “Skiffy” isn’t new. I remember my grandfather using it, telling me that it was the correct pronunciation of “sci-fi”, and the difference between science fiction and sci-fi, which means that it was in use before 1988, and probably before 1978. Maybe only really hardcore fans used it that way, but it isn’t really that new. Thanks; I’d only heard it in relation to the justifiably excoriated “original” movies on that channel. Makes sense that it’s been around, though; it’s obvious enough. ---
**Author:** ![Vimp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vimp/32/4186_2.png) [@Vimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vimp)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/63 "2009-04-04T03:57:49Z")
> [@Hunter\_Hawk](#): > > Thanks for the comments. Like I said, Ellison’s style just didn’t really click with me, but it’s useful to see others’ perspectives. > > FWIW, regarding the other authors who were kinda offered as comparisons to Ellison: > > \ > > R. A. Lafferty: Only read a couple of his books. I’m not Catholic, so I suspect I’m probably missing a lot of references. Try reading Lafferty’s book of collected short stories, _Nine Hundred Grandmothers_, which, ironically, has a very glowing forward written by … Harlan Ellison. (The stories are great, though, really - but I don’t care too much for Lafferty’s longer works. But the stories are GREAT.) ETA: Oops - **RealityChuck** beat me to it ---
**Author:** ![First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/64 "2009-04-04T07:19:10Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Frank Miller mocked Ellison’s public persona in _The Dark Night Returns_, but that wasn’t really a comment on his writing. I had always assumed that was done with Ellison’s permission. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was a piss-take. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/65 "2009-04-04T13:43:05Z")
> [@KatiRoo](#): > > Try reading Lafferty’s book of collected short stories, _Nine Hundred Grandmothers_, which, ironically, has a very glowing forward written by … Harlan Ellison. > > (The stories are great, though, really - but I don’t care too much for Lafferty’s longer works. But the stories are GREAT.) > > ETA: Oops - **RealityChuck** beat me to it And I’ll chime in to third the recommendation. I’ve never had a good experience with his novels, but _Grandmothers_ is probably my favorite collection of short stories. I won’t skip an opportunity to plug it. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to acquire. I just went to Amazon and the prices for the used paperback were all over $20, and most were over $55. There are some small presses committed to keeping Lafferty in print, but I haven’t researched them recently. I read stories from this book to my daughter when she was 8 years old (“Narrow Valley,” “Seven Day Terror,” “Hog-Belly Honey”) and she was charmed. After the World Trade Centers attack I passed the book off to a freind so he could read “What’s the the Name of that Town.” ---
**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:** [April 4, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/66 "2009-04-04T16:14:59Z")
Wikipedia actually has a decent page on [Skiffy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiffy) and it leads you to a [1996 discussion of sci-fi as a term](http://www.sfwa.org/misc/skiffy2.htm) that’s interesting. What the field should be called went through a million variants, which can be tracked, with some difficulty, in the pages of [Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, by Jeff Prucher](http://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Words-Dictionary-Science/dp/0195305671/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238858274&sr=8-1). Science fiction is actually the earliest term used, with an 1851 cite from W. Wilson [A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject](http://books.google.com/books?id=TykCAAAAQAAJ&dq=Little+Earnest+Book+upon+Great+Old+Subject&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=pd513asbXZ&sig=QQaZQRyqEdVlMW4hW1CPR8oxfbE&hl=en&ei=bXvXSbryKpPUlQfEmbTnDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1). > [@](#): > > Now this applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given, interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and \*true \*- thus circulating a knowledge of the Poetry of Science, clothed in a garb of the Poetry of Life. This rates a Wow! from me, in that it’s almost perfect as a definition of the field. Looking at the book itself reveals that he was talking about exactly one example, though, [The poor artist: or, Seven eye-sights and one object‎, by Richard H. Horne](http://books.google.com/books?id=b78sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=%22r.+h.+Horne%22+%22the+poor+artist%22&ei=ZXzXSbb5Jpy8zgTExMG-AQ). Scientific romance appeared almost as early, in 1855, and scientific fiction and scientific fantasy also both appear in the 19th century. Hugo Gernsback coined his ugly scientifiction in 1916, which became popular enough that George Orwell could write that “H. G. Wells … is the father of ‘Scientifiction.’” as late as 1940. Science wonder, science fantasy, super-science, and others were used in the early days. Still, shortly after after Amazing Stories debuted in 1926 the term “science fiction” became the standard. That was still long and ungainly and immediately began being shortened, to SF or sci-fic or sci-fi, in fairly haphazard fashion until Forey Ackerman began beating the drums for “sci-fi” as an analogue to “hi-fi” in 1954. Some people embraced the term, some denounced it. And then, as always happens, some people turned it around and made the pejorative their own, first as sigh-fi and later as skiffie. I remember skiffy being used originally ironically. The problem is that there is no written evidence for this. The Wiki skiffy page gives it as late 1970s. Brave New Words’ first cite is 1982, as a pejorative. All agree that sci-fi was mostly used by outsiders from the beginning. If you’re still fighting that battle you’re looked at a tiresome old crank. Which I am. So don’t do it. ---
**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:** [April 4, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/67 "2009-04-04T22:43:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Science fiction is actually the earliest term used, with an 1851 cite from W. Wilson [A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject](http://books.google.com/books?id=TykCAAAAQAAJ&dq=Little+Earnest+Book+upon+Great+Old+Subject&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=pd513asbXZ&sig=QQaZQRyqEdVlMW4hW1CPR8oxfbE&hl=en&ei=bXvXSbryKpPUlQfEmbTnDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1). > > This rates a Wow! from me, in that it’s almost perfect as a definition of the field. > > Looking at the book itself reveals that he was talking about exactly one example, though, [The poor artist: or, Seven eye-sights and one object‎, by Richard H. Horne](http://books.google.com/books?id=b78sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=%22r.+h.+Horne%22+%22the+poor+artist%22&ei=ZXzXSbb5Jpy8zgTExMG-AQ). I know Brian Aldiss likes to harp on this reference as part of an anti-Hugo Gernsback thing but given the fact that the term isn’t really used and then later naturally evolves from Gernsback’s own term I’m inclined to give the nod to the use in Amazing Stories as the real beginning. The 19th century cites appear to be one-off mashing of words; the same thing Gernsback did really though he got it to stick. One of those etymological quirks, I suppose. If two people independently make up the same word which is the person who coined it: the first person to write it down or the first person to get other people to use it? ---
**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:** [April 5, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686/68 "2009-04-05T00:00:28Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > One of those etymological quirks, I suppose. If two people independently make up the same word which is the person who coined it: the first person to write it down or the first person to get other people to use it? Both have some interest, and depend on what you’re looking for. Samclem and I have had some discussions on this because he’s fascinated by first use and I’m more interested in when a term became popular. For me it’s enough to say that a sufficient number of works existed in the 19th century to cause coinages that clearly show them to be part of the overall history of the field. Whether they are “science fiction” by modern terminology is another discussion entirely. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-harlan-ellison-regarded-as-a-writer/491686.md?page=3)