Dying in his sleep seems a most understated exit for Harlan Ellison, one of the greatest writers of speculative fiction, or science fiction, if you will. Though not Sci-Fi. He absolutely loathed that term - "Like calling women, Broads."
Harlan Ellison: There was no one quite like him in American letters, and never will be. Angry, funny, eloquent, hugely talented. If there's an afterlife, Harlan is already kicking ass and taking down names.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 28, 2018
You no doubt will be familiar with his work, though may not realise it. Ellison wrote what is considered the best episode of the original Star Trek television series, City On The Edge Of Forever, featuring a young Joan Collins, where Kirk, Spock and McCoy time travel to 1930s New York and inadvertently change history, with dire consequences.
Dire consequences were not a stranger to anybody who - inadvertently or not - crossed Ellison in the media world. A prolific novelist and the author of over 1800 short stories, he had sued almost every major US TV network and studio at one time or another for copyright infringement.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934, Ellison had one of those lives people don’t lead anymore, running away from home at 13, taking multiple jobs on the fly, including, in his late teens, tuna fisherman, armed bodyguard, and nitroglycerin truck driver. He did manage a short bought in college along the way where he actually began to write. And pretty much never stopped, knocking out dozens of short stories during the 1950s while fitting in two years in the US Army - he had yet to sue them, as far as we know.
Marvel is deeply saddened by the loss of Harlan Ellison, writer of "Incredible Hulk" #140 and more Hulk and Avengers issues. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans worldwide. pic.twitter.com/CeX5TCbIJG
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) June 29, 2018
Eventually ending up in California in the early sixties, he got into the TV industry and became as prolific on the small screen as he was in the science fiction journals. Knocking out episodes on his manual typewriter - which he still used up until his death - for such shows as The Flying Nun, Route 66, The Man From Uncle, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and where his legend really began to solidity, Star Trek. Along the way, he managed to walk with Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and, if that wasn’t enough, get into a tussle with Frank Sinatra while playing billiards. This argument, over the boots Ellison was wearing, is featured in what is often described as the best magazine article ever written, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold by Gay Talese.
There is exactly one good video game adaptation of a piece of literature and it is the Point and Click Adventure version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream which Harlan Ellison wrote and co-designed. pic.twitter.com/n9mZIEhiak
— Fujoshi's Island (@Dauragon) June 28, 2018
In the seventies his short story One Boy and HIs Dog was made into a motion picture and introduced the world to a young Don Johnson. And in the eighties, he is, indirectly, responsible for making Arnold Schwarzenegger an international star. Rip-off lawsuits are ten a penny in Hollywood, but The Terminator is essentially a Harlan Ellison creation. Soldier and Demon With A Glass Hand, two episodes Ellison wrote for the anthology TV series The Outer Limits back in the 1960s, provided the basis for James Cameron’s internationally successful franchise.
The film company settled out of court and the TIitanic director was forced to not only ante up, but give him an on screen credit at the end of the original film. Cameron labeled him ‘a parasite’. Water off a duck’s back to the man who was personally fired by Walt's nephew Roy Disney on his first day at Disney studios, for not only suggesting Disney make a porn picture, but he acting out the parts himself at the meeting and doing all the voices. More recently, Ellison had sued film maker Andrew Niccol for the Justin Timberlake science fiction thriller In Time, but dropped the lawsuit when he actually watched the film (not many other people did).
How to sum up a life? Well, in this case, the moral of the story is: if you think you’ve a cool idea for a science fiction story, let me stop you right there: Harlan Ellison already came up with that, wrote a short story out of it and sued someone for ripping it off. I recommend you go read his amazing legacy: start with a short story collection like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream or Deathbird Stories or Angry Candy, and go from there.
