Harlan Ellison’s Already Immortal . . . But Let’s Make Certain

I discovered Harlan Ellison in the spring of 1975, I think, after the publication of his coldest, harshest collection before or since, Deathbird Stories. The tales were startling, vivid, often violent and profane. The writer clearly did not want you to look up from one of his tales and say, “that was a nice story”; he hoped to make you fearful, enraged, or energized to get up and do something!

Ellison’s writing was a sharp rap upside the head. Since that first volume, I’ve read just about everything he’s put between the covers of a book -- paper or cloth -- and collected copies of nearly all of them as well.

Now Jason Davis is proposing a mammoth effort to preserve all of Ellison’s unpublished and uncollected work. Davis is a comparatively young fan who became an editor and publisher and has overseen the release of new anthologies as well as lesser-known Ellison works over the past five years (including unshot screenplays and television episodes, and early pulp fiction from magazines such as Trapped, Tightrope!, Guilty Detective Story Magazine, Famous Western magazine, and True Men Stories).

Back and Swinging

I’m back!

Since the shocking election of the GOP nominee, I’ve gotten into a number of arguments on Facebook (not with my FB friends, but friends of those friends) on such topics as racism, immigration policy, and the anti-Trump protests in Portland the past two weeks.

I’ve noticed that Facebook has unhelpfully (but understandably, given the company’s interest in generating more traffic and clicks) unhooked the barriers between different parts of my page. Comments I’ve posted on one friend’s page get viewed by other friends of mine who are NOT friends of that person whose page I posted on.

This has increased the frequency of people with violently differing opinions encountering the comments of one another. Ideally, that might be a good thing; but not when we didn’t ask for or expect it, and especially not during this delicate period when people are in shock from the results of the election and fearful about what the new administration bodes for them, their colleagues, and their friends and loved ones.

I don’t mind the cross currents of debate personally, because I regularly seek out conflict, knowing from long experience that I can walk away from it any time with ease. But I don’t necessarily want my friends to get dragged in, because some are not accustomed that that level of battle (and the occasional vitriol).