# What's Harlan Ellison doing these days?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 21, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149 "2004-07-21T05:39:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/1 "2004-07-21T05:39:17Z")
Harlan Ellison was once the literary lion of New Wave SF – and all I can remember seeing out of him the past 10 or even 20 years or so is some TV scripts. Does he even write print SF any more?
---
### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/2 "2004-07-21T06:09:18Z")
After a couple of decades of exile from bookstore shelves, Ellison is once again a presence in the SF section. Most of these books are phonebook-sized compilations of old stories, though.
About 25 years ago, Ellison participated in an entertaining (but ill-advised) interview with a fan/trade publication with a tiny circulation called [The Comics Journal](http://www.tcj.com). Ellison, famous for his shoot-from-the-hip epigrams, said two things in this interview that had devastating professional repercussions for many years to come. First, he expressed his admiration for the writing of one Michael Fleischer in a backhanded way that Fleischer regarded as libelous. A huge, messy lawsuit followed. Fleischer lost, but Ellison and the Journal paid a couple hundred thousand dollars to defend themselves. Ellison wrote very little during this period.
Second, when shown a copy of The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, the writer urged all the readers of this shoddily-assembled edition (cheaply glued together, a practice known as “perfect binding”) to mail it back to the publisher and demand a refund. This petulant stunt, the then-latest of several, was the last straw between him and his publisher (either Pyramid or Jove, IIRC). He lost his publishing deal and was unable to secure a second one.
Finally, a sizable number of SF professionals identify themselves as Friends (or Foes or Victims) of Ellison and define their lives accordingly. Close friends find themselves suddenly in the Enemies camp. He has a larger-than-life legend that makes people very circumspect about dealing with him.
In between publishing deals, he has made a comfortable living writing for small-press outfits, as well as some ill-defined role on the TV series _Babylon 5._ He also made a commercial for the Geo Prism some years back.
A gifted writer and raconteur, he’s sort of a living example of why writers like Salinger, Barth and Pynchon eschew the public spotlight and don’t do interviews.
---
### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/3 "2004-07-21T06:34:22Z")
Other then still being pissed off about “The City on the Edge of Forever”, I heard he did some voice work for the computer game version of “I have no mouth and I must scream.”
I haven’t for the life of me been able to locate the game, so I don’t know, but I’ve heard he does the voice of AM.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/4 "2004-07-21T10:48:04Z")
He’s appeared on the Sci-Fi channel occasionally during the past few years.
What I wanna know is what he thinks of the current version of **I, Robot** , since he wrote an excellent screenplay for it some 25 years ago that was praised by Asimov. That should make for another interesting Ellison-vs-Hollywood tirade.
---
### Author:  [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/5 "2004-07-21T12:29:14Z")
I understand he had a really nasty heart attack a few years back, requiring serious multiple bypass surgery.
This is the sort of thing that can derail your long term plans, I think.
---
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/6 "2004-07-21T13:22:21Z")
He’s been sitting on his front portch, screaming “Stay offa my lawn!” at the local Youth. And he’s been sitting on his front portch, screaming “Stay offa my lawn!” at everybody else involved in any way, even marginally, in the science fiction publishing business.
How very Harlan of him. 😃😉
---
### Author:  [@Landshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Landshark)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/7 "2004-07-21T14:06:11Z")
About his work for _Babylon 5_. As indicated on [this page](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0255196/), he was a “conceptual consultant”. The link also shows (towards the bottom of the page) he did voice work for the series on a couple shows and also did one on-screen acting cameo. I well remember seeing him appear and thinking “Whoa. That’s Harlan Ellison!”
---
### Author:  [@Graycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Graycat)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/8 "2004-07-21T14:34:08Z")
He also did voice work on the US audiobook of Terry Pratchett’s _The Thief of Time._ ( I forget who the publisher was). This was an ensemble recording and Harlan did the intro and the footnotes.
---
### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/9 "2004-07-21T15:50:52Z")
He’s still (pretending to) edit _The Last Dangerous Visions_.
---
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/10 "2004-07-21T16:42:04Z")
Here’s his entry in the [Internet Science Fiction Database](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Harlan_Ellison).
There are several stories from the past few years listed.
He’s also been all over doing interviews about his lawsuit against AOL, which was just settled.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/11 "2004-07-21T17:46:45Z")
I saw his name on the covers of a couple of graphic novels at Dreamwell.
Didn’t actually look inside, but it seemed like a potential good read, what with Harlan Ellison and all.
---
### Author:  [@thwartme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thwartme)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/12 "2004-07-21T17:48:53Z")
A brief interview with the Angry One from the most recent Wired Magazine can be found [here.](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/view.html?pg=3)
It’s about the AOL lawsuit, and how it took up so much of his time, and how he’s a hero. Yawn.
thwartme
---
### Author:  [@Zog\_10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zog_10)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/13 "2004-07-21T18:53:22Z")
I’m a huge Ellison fan - easily my favorite SF author.
That being said, here is his webpage . This page has been recently updated with the AOL stuff, but other than that hasn’t changed since 2003. No appearances or anything of note.
I know that he was working with White Wolf to republish his entire bibliography (the _Edgeworks_ series) but that fizzled when he started editing the _Glass Teat_ and _Dangerous Visions_ books.
He published a book called _Slippage_ that I have but haven’t really read.
Basically, as others have said he is in a sort of seclusion, not really doing a whole lot.
---
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/14 "2004-07-21T21:38:16Z")
> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> After a couple of decades of exile from bookstore shelves, Ellison is once again a presence in the SF section. Most of these books are phonebook-sized compilations of old stories, though.
>
> About 25 years ago, Ellison participated in an entertaining (but ill-advised) interview with a fan/trade publication with a tiny circulation called [The Comics Journal](http://www.tcj.com). Ellison, famous for his shoot-from-the-hip epigrams, said two things in this interview that had devastating professional repercussions for many years to come. First, he expressed his admiration for the writing of one Michael Fleischer in a backhanded way that Fleischer regarded as libelous. A huge, messy lawsuit followed. Fleischer lost, but Ellison and the Journal paid a couple hundred thousand dollars to defend themselves. Ellison wrote very little during this period.
>
> Second, when shown a copy of The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, the writer urged all the readers of this shoddily-assembled edition (cheaply glued together, a practice known as “perfect binding”) to mail it back to the publisher and demand a refund. This petulant stunt, the then-latest of several, was the last straw between him and his publisher (either Pyramid or Jove, IIRC). He lost his publishing deal and was unable to secure a second one.
>
> Finally, a sizable number of SF professionals identify themselves as Friends (or Foes or Victims) of Ellison and define their lives accordingly. Close friends find themselves suddenly in the Enemies camp. He has a larger-than-life legend that makes people very circumspect about dealing with him.
>
> In between publishing deals, he has made a comfortable living writing for small-press outfits, as well as some ill-defined role on the TV series _Babylon 5._ He also made a commercial for the Geo Prism some years back.
>
> A gifted writer and raconteur, he’s sort of a living example of why writers like Salinger, Barth and Pynchon eschew the public spotlight and don’t do interviews.
Did Asimov “eschew the public spotlight”? Did Heinlein? Do Bova, Sterling, Gibson? I think Harlan’s experience is only an example of how you can destroy your career by being obnoxious.
---
### Author:  [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/15 "2004-07-22T00:11:43Z")
I’m a big fan of Ellison’s writing myself, and have just picked up a couple of (relatively) new items (well, new for me):
[Troublemakers](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=bsq1Ht7EVV&isbn=0743423984&itm=1), a collection of previously anthologized stories
The aforementioned [I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=bsq1Ht7EVV&isbn=0743486595&itm=1) (which I haven’t read yet).
Apparently, there’s a reprint of his juvie-gang related collection forthcoming: [Children of the Streets](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=bsq1Ht7EVV&isbn=0727861050&itm=3)
Count me amongst those who’d like to see more new writing from him.
---
### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2004, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/16 "2004-07-22T00:38:07Z")
> [@Quixotic](#):
>
> I’m a big fan of Ellison’s writing myself, …
>
> Count me amongst those who’d like to see more new writing from him.
Show me **The Last Dangerous Visions** and then I’ll believe he’s got some creative juices left yet.
However, it’s unlikely he’ll ever publish TLDV (aka [The Book on the Edge of Forever](http://books.fantasticfiction.co.uk/x0/x48.htm?authorid=2322)). He’s treated too many other contributing authors, publishers, and fans in such a way as to alienate him from his natural audience. IMHO
---
### Author:  [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-harlan-ellison-doing-these-days/256149/17 "2004-07-22T01:16:43Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#):
>
> Show me **The Last Dangerous Visions** and then I’ll believe he’s got some creative juices left yet.
>
> However, it’s unlikely he’ll ever publish TLDV (aka [The Book on the Edge of Forever](http://books.fantasticfiction.co.uk/x0/x48.htm?authorid=2322)). He’s treated too many other contributing authors, publishers, and fans in such a way as to alienate him from his natural audience. IMHO
Hm. Well, is vitriol a “creative juice”? 😉
For the record, I agree he’s alienated many _many_ people (fans included), but I almost always find him a fascinating read, whether I agree with him or not. But then again, I’m basing that opinion on my recollection of his earlier fiction and essays.