New writing challenge to myself, write something good that would annoy Harlan Ellison.
High school student me idolized Ellison so it’s like 50% of the joke is “kill your darlings” and 50% of the joke is “just write a story with a woman in it who isn’t terrible.”
It’s weird to have liked him since high-school because he’s kinda a mixed bag of real writing talent and activism and aging horribly and being kind of a dick and y'know just actually human like I wish I could go back and explain to high-school me why idolizing a guy that way is a bad idea. Lesson learned.
He would approve of my wanting to annoy him though. Go figure.
Problematic faves? Oh just search this guy up, you wanna see a problematic fave, oof.
This guy has turnover like a telemarketing position what the fuck
And then on the other side he was like an aggressive proponent of civil rights, better treatment of screen writers, and put together a couple anthologies which changed the science fiction genre forever.
I like to imagine he did more good than harm overall but also just because he did a lot of impressive and amazing and sometimes unbelievable stuff doesn’t exempt him from doing shitty things. Seeing him not able to change with the world towards his last decade was my cold water to the face about not putting real people on a pedestal.
But also every time I see Tumblr make a play off “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” I smile a little because it’s fun for me that one of his most famous stories still circulates as a meme.
Harlan single-handedly did SO MUCH to impact the face of modern sci-fi….
Harlan was also a RAGING asshole with no sense of boundaries as they extended to others, nor any care of what might be acceptable to others.
I think of Ellison, Heinlein, etm. are all what I think of as Progressive Paternalists… They felt the need to shepherd and take care of certain groups… But were often complex, inspiring yet rotten…
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