Harlan Ellison (1934–2018)

I cannot believe it took me so long to discover Harlan Ellison. I enjoyed most of the short stories in this collection, reflecting Ellison's sharp mind and vivid imagination. He sure is a good story teller - and a master of creative, sophisticated insults!

One of the characters (Ferreno in 'Night Vigil') somehow reminded me of Desmond in the TV series 'Lost'. Both are isolated men, burdened with a nonsense (but important) task to save the world. I wonder if Ellison's story influenced Lost's script.

I am certain, I will read more of Ellison's work in the near future...… (mer)

The set up here is that each contributing author has a short narrative to begin, and they must finish the story from there - the given narrative has a character going into a government administered euthanasia center and accepts his fate. But what fate? The best of the stories comes from [[Poul Anderson]], a surprise for me because I haven't otherwise enjoyed his work. Anderson takes the character through multiple, ever-changing iterations of an after-life - the purpose, to learn from these varying waters how to keep the destabilizing world on track. [[Harlan Ellison]]'s take was near undigestible altogether. The other three were passable, if a little strained for working too hard at the tasking. On balance, I expected more from these luminaries.

2 bones!!… (mer)

A re-read of the second volume in a collection of polemical TV columns written for an independent newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press, continuing from February 1970. This book contains the last batch of 52 columns up until May 1972. Ellison uses the medium of TV criticism to discuss the ills of contemporary society in the Vietnam War/pre Nixon impeachment era.

For those not familiar with his style, be warned that there is a lot of swearing and words that would these days be completely unacceptable, including derogatory ones about race, although the writer is not using them to be racist: quite the opposite. This volume shows a growing awareness also of the objectification of women, with criticism of a beauty pageant show about little girls, among other things.

An interesting feature for anyone interested in either the development of TV drama at that time, or Ellison's work in particular, is that he gives the complete script of an episode he wrote for a series about lawyers being made at the time, and as a follow-up his angry reflections on how it was hacked around and changed beyond recognition when actually made.

As with volume 1, The Glass Teat, some of the material in these columns is so of its time that it would have gone over my head even when I first read this as a teenager, as the TV shows or actors under discussion were long gone. However, there's enough of interest in Ellison's rancour, despair, occasional ray of hope that young people will be the saving of the USA, and the insight this collection gives about Americans of liberal views, despised as "intellectuals" at that period and probably also nowadays, to be worth a read.… (mer)