As you may have heard, SF icon Harlan Ellison® (his name’s a registered trademark, you see) passed away on Thursday, at the age of 84. I had a few encounters with the great man—mostly by phone—during my years as a book editor, and despite his reputation for being abrasive (because he had no time for idiots), for me it was always fun talking to him. And saying he was talented as hell doesn’t even scratch the surface of his influence on science fiction, and writing in general.
And it reminds me of this birthday post I made four years ago that described those encounters—a post, it turned out according to one of his friends, that Harlan actually saw and enjoyed!
Additionally, Pandora Zwieback editor Howard Zimmerman (who was my old boss back in my book-editor days, and editor of Starlog magazine before that) was a friend of Harlan’s and said it was okay for me to post this remembrance:
“It was summer, 1977. I was the editor of Starlog, a science-fiction media magazine. An increasingly frequent contributor was Harlan Ellison. Fortuitously, we hit it off just fine; we agreed on things; we saw eye-to-eye. (Yes, a couple of short Jews.)
“The Starlog office was in Manhattan. So was I. Harlan was in town, staying at his buddy Norman Spinrad’s apartment in the East Village. I don’t remember where Norman himself was at that time, but it’s a good bet it was Paris.
“I was there to interview Harlan—probably for his views on recently released and upcoming science-fiction movies. He did several film reviews for Starlog.
“It was a late Friday afternoon. My agenda was to get an hour of Harlan on tape, then head to Penn Station, where I would catch a Long Island Railroad train out to Bay Shore, there to board a ferry to Ocean Beach, Fire Island, and join my wife and her family for the weekend.
“Harlan had been working on finishing a draft for his latest short story. Two sheets of stationary with a piece of carbon paper between them were still in the portable typewriter on Norman’s desk. Harlan was fashioning the story’s final scene when I knocked on the door.
“At the end of the hour, I was ready to leave. Harlan was not ready to let me go. I wanted to catch my train. He wanted to read me his story. I got up to go. He got up and put his chair in front of the door, and sat down, telling me he wanted to read me his story.
“As if I had a choice.
“And so he did. And of course, he blew me away. The story was ‘Jeffty Is Five,’ which only went on to win the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, etc.
“I missed my train. And Friday night dinner.
“But . . . wow.
“He was a force of nature.”
—Copyright © 2018 Howard Zimmerman
You had some hard edges, Mr. E, but you were a softie inside. Thanks for putting up with this idiot. 😀 —Steve
