![]() ![]() ![]() My first encounter with Ellison is one I’ve written about before, the two of us side-by-side, rummaging in the quarter bins at the San Diego Comic-Con around 1981, when he looks over, points at an older gent and says “oh look, there’s Joe Shuster.” Prior to that moment, he’d fired off a few smartass comments to the comic vendor, but we had no interaction or conversation (apart from a nod of acknowledgement that I knew who he was, despite his looking like just another fan in his “I Dialed H for Hero” t-shirt) before he sent me scurrying off to meet the co-creator of Superman. Jim: I didn’t know Ellison, and he certainly didn’t know me, but I met him about four times, all of them memorable. I have led the life I guess that everybody in their heart of hearts wants to lead.”Įveryone who ever met him has a Harlan story, to the point that being in his presence was usually referred to as “witnessing the ‘Harlan Live’ show,” and we here at the Junk Shop are no exceptions. I have led exactly the life I would wish to lead. No, not ‘pretty’ happy - that’s television talk. All I want to make sure is that when the paper comes out, it says, ‘Harlan Ellison died in his sleep.’ You’re talking to, essentially, a pretty happy guy. Back in 2010, he announced that he was not going to do any more convention appearances because “I’m dying.” He explained in a lengthy interview at the time, “I’m not afraid of death, and there is not one iota of suicide in me. So if you’re tired of the post-apocalyptic stuff because it’s just not dark enough, come on over to an even darker side, and try what Harlan Ellison has to offer.One of the most incisive and compelling observers of the human condition, Harlan Ellison passed away in his sleep last week at age 84. But it’s influential, even winning a Hugo Award. Only one person survives, and AM is so angry about this, he transforms the poor man into an giant amorphous blob that is incapable of taking his own life. So high, that they begin killing each other gnawing on faces and taking people out with icicles. The understatement is for this is that tensions were high. Sadly, when they find the canned food, they realize they can’t open it. When one of the humans think there might be canned food in the complex they are housed, they go on an epic journey to find it while AM continues to torture them. forever… and AM’s also very good at making sure they don’t kill themselves. These five people become AM’s favorite toys, as he starves them, feeds them disgusting mush, and tortures them within an inch of their life but always keeping them alive…. One, called AM, gains sentience, absorbs the other supercomputers, and then proceeds to wipe out all of humanity, save for five people. The story takes place after the US and the Soviets have developed super computers in the Cold War. Nothing truly captures his pure pessimism the way this one does. I don’t think we write enough about the really messed up predecessors of the science fiction today, so Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” is the subject of today’s Throwback Thursday, ’s ongoing column dedicated to the great and influential science fiction of the past.Ī lot of people will ask me how to describe Ellison’s work, and what I usually do is describe this short story. I knew Harlan Ellison because he wrote a disturbing story that my friend handed to me saying, “This is some seriously f*cked up sh*t, man”. Or maybe you know him as the man who groped Science Fiction author, Connie Willis, because that’s apparently what friends do (though there is some debate about whether this was blown out of proportion). Some you may know him as the dude who had a kerfuffle about the ‘Star Trek’ episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” and successfully sued for damages against CBS in 2009 ( kerfuffle is probably underplaying it). Some of you might know him from the big Penny Arcade debacle, where he and Gabe (Mike Krahulik) had a kerfuffle about who was the rudest person. Some of you may know Harlan Ellison, some of you may not.
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