Early life and career

Ellison was born to a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934, the son of Serita (née Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison, a dentist and jeweler. His family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. Ellison frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short-order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".

Ellison attended The Ohio State University for 18 months (1951-53) before being expelled. He has said the expulsion was for hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability, and over the next twenty or so years he sent that professor a copy of every story he published.

Ellison published two stories in the Cleveland News during 1949, and he sold a story to EC Comics early in the 1950s. Ellison moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, he published more than 100 short stories and articles. He married Charlotte Stein in 1956, but they divorced four years later. He said of the marriage, "four years of hell as sustained as the whine of a generator."

Hollywood and beyond

Ellison moved to California in 1962, and subsequently began to sell his writing to Hollywood. He wrote the screenplay for The Oscar, starring Stephen Boyd and Elke Sommer. Ellison also sold scripts to many television shows: The Flying Nun, Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Cimarron Strip, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Ellison's screenplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" has been considered the best of the 79 episodes in the series.

He participated in the 1965 Bloody Sunday March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Also in 1966, in an article Esquire magazine would later name as the best magazine piece ever written, the journalist Gay Talese wrote about the goings-on around the enigmatic Frank Sinatra. The article, entitled "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold", briefly describes a clash between the young Harlan Ellison and Frank Sinatra, when the crooner took exception to Ellison's boots during a billiards game. Talese wrote of the incident, "Sinatra probably forgot about it at once, but Ellison will remember it all his life."

Ellison was hired as a writer for Walt Disney Studios but was fired on his first day after Roy O. Disney overheard him in the studio commissary joking about making a pornographic animated film featuring Disney characters. Ellison recounted this incident in his book Stalking the Nightmare, as part 3 of an essay titled "The 3 Most Important Things in Life".

Ellison continued to publish short fiction and nonfiction pieces in various publications, including some of his best known stories. "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965) is a celebration of civil disobedience against repressive authority. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967) is an allegory of Hell, where five humans are tormented by an all-knowing computer throughout eternity; the story was the basis of a 1995 computer game; Ellison participated in the game's design and provided the voice of the god-computer AM. Another story, "A Boy and His Dog", examines the nature of friendship and love in a violent, post-apocalyptic world and was made into the 1975 film of the same name, starring Don Johnson.

Ellison served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5. As a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), he has voiceover credits for shows including The Pirates of Dark Water, Mother Goose and Grimm, Space Cases, Phantom 2040, and Babylon 5, as well as made an onscreen appearance in the Babylon 5 episode "The Face of the Enemy".

Ellison's 1992 short story "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" was selected for inclusion in the 1993 edition of The Best American Short Stories.

In 2014 Ellison made a guest appearance on the album Finding Love in Hell by the stoner metal band Leaving Babylon, reading his piece "The Silence" (originally published in Mind Fields) as an introduction to the song "Dead to Me."

Pseudonyms

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios (see also Alan Smithee). The first such work to which he signed the name was "The Price of Doom", an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (though it was misspelled as Cord Wainer Bird in the credits). An episode of Burke's Law ("Who Killed Alex Debbs?") credited to Ellison contains a character given this name, played by Sammy Davis, Jr.

The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds". Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it may be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds" or that it is of as much use as shoes to a bird. Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird" (given credence by Ellison himself in his own essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto", describing his experience with the Starlost television series).

The Bird moniker has since become a character in one of Ellison's own stories, not without some prompting. In his book Strange Wine, Ellison explains the origins of the Bird and goes on to state that Philip Jose Farmer wrote Cordwainer into the Wold Newton family the latter writer had developed. The thought of such a whimsical object lesson being related to such lights as Doc Savage, the Shadow, Tarzan, and all the other pulp heroes prompted Ellison to play with the concept, resulting in The New York Review of Bird, in which an annoyed Bird uncovers the darker secrets of the New York Literary Establishment before beginning a pulpish slaughter of same.

Other pseudonyms Ellison has used during his career include Jay Charby, Sley Harson, Ellis Hart, John Magnus, Paul Merchant, Pat Roeder, Ivar Jorgenson, Derry Tiger, and Jay Solo.

Controversies and disputes

Temperament

Ellison has a reputation for being abrasive and argumentative. He has generally agreed with this assessment, and a dust jacket from one of Ellison's books described him as "possibly the most contentious person on Earth". Ellison has filed numerous grievances and attempted lawsuits; as part of a dispute about fulfillment of a contract, he once sent 213 bricks to a publisher postage due, followed by a dead gopher via fourth-class mail.

Star Trek

Ellison has repeatedly criticized how Star Trek creator and producer Gene Roddenberry (and others) rewrote his original script for the 1967 episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". Despite his objections, Ellison kept his own name on the shooting script instead of using "Cordwainer Bird" to indicate displeasure (above).

Ellison's original script was first published in the 1976 anthology Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Elwood. Ellison also novelized the story at that time, for the Star Trek Fotonovel series: The City on the Edge of Forever (Bantam Books, 1977, 0-553-11345-3). In 1995, Borderlands Press published The City on the Edge of Forever (ISBN 1-880325-02-0), with nearly 300 pages, comprising an essay by Ellison, four versions of the teleplay, and eight "Afterwords" contributed by other parties. He greatly expanded the introduction for the paperback edition: Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, White Wolf Publishing, 1996; ISBN 1-56504-964-0. It explains what he called a "fatally inept treatment".

Both versions of the script won awards: Ellison's original script won the 1968 Writers Guild Award for best episodic drama in television, while the shooting script won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Wikinews has related news: Harlan Ellison sues CBS-Paramount, WGA over Star Trek royalties

On March 13, 2009, Ellison sued CBS Paramount Television, seeking payment of 25% of net receipts from merchandising, publishing, and other income from the episode since 1967; the suit also names the Writers Guild of America for allegedly failing to act on Ellison's behalf. On October 23, 2009, Variety magazine reported that a settlement had been reached.

Aggiecon I

In 1969, Ellison was Guest of Honor at Texas A&M University's first science fiction convention, Aggiecon, where he reportedly referred to the university's Corps of Cadets as "... America's next generation of Nazis ...", inspired in part by the continuing Vietnam War. Although the university was no longer solely a military school (from 1965), the studentry was predominantly made up of cadet members. Between Ellison's anti-military remarks and a food fight that broke out in the ballroom of the hotel where the gathering was held (although according to Ellison in 2000, the food fight actually started in a Denny's because the staff disappeared and they could not get their check), the school's administration almost refused to approve the science fiction convention the next year, and no guest of honor was invited for the next two Aggiecons. However, Ellison was subsequently invited back as Guest of Honor for Aggiecon V (1974) and Aggiecon XXXI (2000).

The Last Dangerous Visions

The Last Dangerous Visions (TLDV), the third volume of Ellison's anthology series, was originally announced for publication in 1973 but remains unpublished. Nearly 150 writers (many now dead) submitted works for the volume. In 1993, Ellison threatened to sue New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) for publishing "Himself in Anachron", a short story written by Cordwainer Smith and sold to Ellison for the book by his widow, but later reached an amicable settlement.

British science fiction author Christopher Priest criticized Ellison's editorial practices in an article entitled "The Book on the Edge of Forever", later expanded into a book. Priest documented a half-dozen unfulfilled promises by Ellison to publish TLDV within a year of the statement. Priest claims he submitted a story at Ellison's request, which Ellison retained for several months until Priest withdrew the story and demanded that Ellison return the manuscript. Ellison was incensed by "Book on the Edge of Forever" and has, personally or by proxy, threatened Priest on numerous occasions since its publication.

I, Robot

Shortly after the release of Star Wars (1977), Ben Roberts contacted Ellison to develop a script based on Isaac Asimov's I, Robot short story collection for Warner Brothers. In a meeting with studio head Robert Shapiro, Ellison concluded that Shapiro was commenting on the script without having read it and accused him of having the "intellectual capacity of an artichoke". Shortly afterwards, Ellison was dropped from the project. Without Ellison, the film came to a dead end, because subsequent scripts were unsatisfactory to potential directors. After a change in studio heads, Warner allowed Ellison's script to be serialized in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and published in book form. The 2004 film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, has no connection to Ellison's script.

Allegations of assault on Charles Platt

In the 1980s, Ellison allegedly publicly assaulted author and critic Charles Platt at the Nebula Awards banquet. Platt did not pursue legal action against Ellison, and the two men later signed a "non-aggression pact", promising never to discuss the incident again nor to have any contact with one another. Platt claims that Ellison has often publicly boasted about the incident.

Lawsuit against Fantagraphics

On September 20, 2006, Ellison sued comic book and magazine publisher Fantagraphics, stating they had defamed him in their book Comics As Art (We Told You So). The book recounts the history of Fantagraphics and discussed a lawsuit that resulted from a 1980 Ellison interview with Fantagraphics' industry news magazine, The Comics Journal. In this interview Ellison referred to comic book writer Michael Fleisher, calling him "bugfuck" and "derange-o". Fleisher lost his libel suit against Ellison and Fantagraphics on December 9, 1986.

Ellison, after reading unpublished drafts of the book on Fantagraphics's website, believed that he had been defamed by several anecdotes related to this incident. He sued in the Superior court for the State of California, in Santa Monica. Fantagraphics attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed. In their motion to dismiss, Fantagraphics argued that the statements were both their personal opinions and generally believed to be true anecdotes. On February 12, 2007, the presiding judge ruled against Fantagraphics' anti-SLAPP motion for dismissal. On June 29, 2007, Ellison claimed that the litigation had been resolved pending Fantagraphics' removal of all references to the case from their website. No money or apologies changed hands in the settlement as posted on August 17, 2007.

Copyright suits

In a lawsuit against ABC and Paramount Pictures, Ellison and Ben Bova claimed that a TV series, Future Cop was based on their short story, "Brillo", winning a $337,000 judgement.

Ellison alleged that James Cameron's film The Terminator drew from material from Ellison's "Soldier", an episode of The Outer Limits. Hemdale, the production company and the distributor Orion Pictures, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, and added a credit to the film which acknowledged Ellison's work. Cameron objected to this acknowledgement, and has since labeled Ellison's claim a "nuisance suit". Ellison has publicly referred to The Terminator as "a good film." Some accounts of the settlement state that Demon with a Glass Hand" another Outer Limits episode written by Ellison, was also claimed to have been plagiarized by the film, but Ellison has explicitly stated that The Terminator "was a ripoff" of "Soldier" rather than "Demon with a Glass Hand".

On April 24, 2000, Ellison sued Stephen Robertson for posting four stories to the newsgroup "alt.binaries.e-book" without authorization. The other defendants were AOL and RemarQ, internet service providers who owned servers hosting the newsgroup. Ellison alleged they had failed to halt copyright infringement in accordance with the "Notice and Takedown Procedure" outlined in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Robertson and RemarQ first settled with Ellison, and then AOL likewise settled with Ellison in June 2004, under conditions that were not made public. Since those settlements Ellison has initiated legal action or takedown notices against more than 240 people who have allegedly distributed his writings on the Internet, saying, "If you put your hand in my pocket, you'll drag back six inches of bloody stump".

A lawsuit involving the film In Time (2011), which Ellison contended plagiarizes his short story ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman" (first published in 1965) was withdrawn after Ellison viewed the film. As part of the agreement to dismiss his lawsuit, Ellison agreed that each party would bear its own attorneys' fees.

Works

Novels and novellas

• Web of the City (1958) (originally published as Rumble)
• The Man With Nine Lives (1960) (revised and reprinted in 2011 under the author's preferred title The Sound of a Scythe)
• Spider Kiss (1961) (originally published as Rockabilly)
• Doomsman (1967) (re-issued under the author's preferred title Way of an Assassin in the collection Rough Beasts)
• A Boy and His Dog (1969) (made into a film)
• The Starlost #1: Phoenix Without Ashes (1975) (adaptation by Edward Bryant of Ellison's TV pilot script)
• All the Lies That Are My Life (1980) (later included in the author's 1980 collection Shatterday)
• Run for the Stars (1991) (a 1957 novella here republished in a preferred text edition as part of a Tor Double)
• Mefisto in Onyx (1993) (later included in the author's 1997 collection Slippage)

Short-story collections

• A Touch of Infinity (1958)
• The Deadly Streets (1958)
• Sex Gang (1959) (as by Paul Merchant)
• Children of the Streets (1961) (originally published as The Juvies)
• Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation (1961)
• Ellison Wonderland (1962) (also published as Earthman, Go Home!) Ellison calls his home in Sherman Oaks, California "Ellison Wonderland."
• Paingod and Other Delusions (1965)
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)
• From the Land of Fear (1967)
• Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled (1968)
• The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969)
• Over the Edge (1970)
• Partners in Wonder (1971) (collaborations with 14 other writers)
• Approaching Oblivion (1974)
• Deathbird Stories (1975)
• No Doors, No Windows (1975)
• Strange Wine (1978)
• Shatterday (1980) (reissued 2007 by Edgeworks Abbey/Tachyon Publications)
• Stalking the Nightmare (1982)
• Angry Candy (1988)
• Mind Fields (1994) (33 stories inspired by the art of Jacek Yerka)
• Slippage (1997)
• Troublemakers (2001) (collection produced for the Young Adult market and featuring, for the most part, previously collected material)
• Pulling a Train (2012)
• Rough Beasts (2012)
• Getting in the Wind (2013)
• Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word (2013)
• Can & Can'tankerous (2016)

Retrospectives and omnibus collections

• Alone Against Tomorrow: a 10-Year Survey (1971) (published in the UK in two volumes as All the Sounds of Fear (1973) and The Time of the Eye (1974))
• The Fantasies of Harlan Ellison (1979) (contains "Paingod and Other Delusions" (1965) and "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967))
• The Essential Ellison: a 35-Year Retrospective (1987) (edited by Terry Dowling with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont)
• Dreams With Sharp Teeth (1991) (contains "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967), Deathbird Stories (1975) and Shatterday (1980))
• Edgeworks. 1 (1996) (contains "Over the Edge" (1970) and "An Edge in My Voice" (1985))
• Edgeworks. 2 (1996) (contains "Spider Kiss" (1961) and "Stalking the Nightmare" (1982))
• Edgeworks. 3 (1997) (contains "The Harlan Ellison Hornbook" (1990) and "Harlan Ellison's Movie" (1990))
• Edgeworks. 4 (1997) (contains Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled (1968) and The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969))
• The Essential Ellison: a 50-Year Retrospective Revised & Expanded (2001) (edited by Terry Dowling with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont)
• The Glass Teat Omnibus: The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat (2011) (Published by Charnel House, handmade books published in a very limited edition, in June, with an Audio recording, dated Feb. 2011, of Ellison reading "Welcome to the Gulag", a special introduction written just for this new, updated, publication of the essays and criticism on television).
• The Top of the Volcano: the Award-winning Stories of Harlan Ellison (2014)

Note: the White Wolf Edgeworks Series was originally scheduled to consist of 31 titles reprinted over the course of 20 omnibus volumes. Although an ISBN was created for Edgeworks. 5 (1998), which was to contain both Glass Teat books, this title never appeared. The series is notorious for its numerous typographical errors.

Nonfiction

• Memos from Purgatory (1961)
• The Glass Teat (1970) (essays of opinion on television, 1968-1970)
• The Other Glass Teat (1975) (further essays of opinion on television, 1970-1972)
• The Book of Ellison (1978) (edited by Andrew Porter)
• Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (1984) (edited by Marty Clark)
• An Edge in My Voice (1985)
• Harlan Ellison's Watching (1989) (reissued 2008 by M Press)
• The Harlan Ellison Hornbook (1990)

Published screenplays and teleplays

• Phoenix Without Ashes (original, unaired and unaltered, Writers Guild of America Award-winning teleplay), published in Faster Than Light (1975, Haper & Row), alongside original stories by George R.R. Martin and Ben Bova, and reprints by Isaac Asimov.
• I, Robot (1994), (based on stories by Isaac Asimov, illustrated by Mark Zug)
• The City on the Edge of Forever (1996), (Star Trek episode, original screenplay, with commentary. For an in-depth review of this book see. This script was also published in Six Science Fiction Plays (1976) edited by Roger Elwood)
• Harlan Ellison's Movie (1990), (unproduced feature-length screenplay serialised in Ellison's weekly newspaper column The Harlan Ellison Hornbook and collected in the omnibus volume Edgeworks. 3 (1996))
• Flintlock (unproduced Harlan Ellison teleplay) (1987), (unproduced pilot teleplay for a proposed 1972 TV series based on James Coburn's character in Our Man Flint, published in both editions of the retrospective volume The Essential Ellison (1987, 2001))
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (1975), (teleplay produced in the TV series The Young Lawyers, serialised in Ellison's weekly newspaper column The Glass Teat and collected in The Other Glass Teat (1975); unrelated to Ellison's later 1973 short story, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs")
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (unfinished screenplay based on Ellison's 1973 short story of the same title as, but completely unrelated to the Young Lawyers teleplay referenced above; three treatments of the opening sequence were published in the June 1988 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and later appeared in Harlan Ellison's Watching (1989))
• Soldier, produced for The Outer Limits in 1964; published alongside the short story on which it was based in his 1967 collection From the Land of Fear.
• Crazy as a Soup Sandwich, produced for The Twilight Zone in 1989; published in his 1997 collection Slippage.
• Nackles, written for The Twilight Zone, an adaptation of a Donald E. Westlake story written, but never produced, in 1985, published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1986 and in a limited edition of Slippage which was published Mark Ziesing in 1997.
• Memo From Purgatory, produced for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1964, Soldier, produced for The Outer Limits in 1964, Demon With a Glass Hand, produced for The Outer Limits in 1964, Paladin of the Lost Hour, produced for The Twilight Zone in 1985, Crazy as a Soup Sandwich produced for The Twilight Zone in 1989, and The Face of Helene Bournouw, produced for The Hunger in 1998, were all published in Brain Movies: The Original Teleplays of Harlan Ellison, Volume One, published by Edgeworks Abbey/Publishing 180 in 2011.
• Killing Bernstein, written, but unproduced, for "The Dark Room", 1982, Deeper Than the Darkness, retitled "A Knife in the Darkness", produced for Cimarron Strip in 1968, Mealtime, retitled "The Price of Doom", produced for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1964, The Sort of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful Affair, produced for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1966, The Pieces of Fate Affair, produced for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1967, and Phoenix Without Ashes, the pilot for The Starlost that was rewritten and retitled as "Voyage of Discovery", produced in 1973, are all collected in Brain Movies: The Original Teleplays of Harlan Ellison, Volume Two'', published by Edgeworks Abbey/Publishing 180 in 2011.
• None of the Above, an adaptation of Norman Spinrad's novel, Bug Jack Barron, written for director Costa-Gavras in the early 1980s, published by Edgeworks Abbey in November 2012.
• Cutter's World, an original, two-hour 1987 pilot teleplay for a western-tinged science fiction series for CBS, that was to have been directed by Roger Corman, Who Killed Alex Debbs?, a script that was produced for the hit 1960s show, Burke's Law, the initial outline for Demon with a Glass Hand, and The Ship That Kills, an unproduced story outline for a 1974-1975, depression-era, series called "The Manhunter", starring Ken Howard, are collected in Brain Movies Vol. 3, published by Edgeworks Abbey and available from HarlanEllisonBooks.com.
• Brillo, an unproduced, two-hour teleplay pilot, written in collaboration with Ben Bova, for ABC, Who Killed Purity Mather?, written and produced for Burke's Law, and Jeffrey's Being Quiet, written for Sixth Sense, are collected in Brain Movies Vol. 4, published by Edgeworks Abbey and available from HarlanEllisonBooks.com.
• The Dark Forces, an unproduced pilot, written for NBC, Who Killed Andy Zygmunt?, written and produced for Burke's Law, Where Do the Elephants Go to Die?, written and produced for Ripcord, an unproduced teleplay for The Rat Patrol as well as outlines for Batman and Logan's Run are collected in Brain Movies Vol. 5, published by Edgeworks Abbey and available from HarlanEllisonBooks.com.

See also The Starlost#1: Phoenix without Ashes (1975), the novelization by Edward Bryant of the teleplay for the pilot episode of The Starlost, which includes a lengthy afterword by Ellison describing what happened during production of the series.

Anthologies edited

• Dangerous Visions (1967) (also issued as a three-volume paperback edition)
• Nightshade and Damnations: the finest stories of Gerald Kersh (1968)
• Again, Dangerous Visions (1972) (also issued as a two-volume paperback edition)
• Medea: Harlan's World (1985) (an experiment in collaborative science-fictional world-building, featuring contributions by Hal Clement, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon, and others)
• Jacques Futrelle's "The Thinking Machine": The Enigmatic Problems of Prof. Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, PhD, LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., M. D. S. (2007)

Selected short stories

• "A Boy and His Dog"
• "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W"
• "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"
• "The Deathbird"
• "The Diagnosis of Dr. D'arqueAngel"
• "The Dragon on the Bookshelf"
• "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet"
• "Grail"
• "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" - made into a CD-ROM PC video game I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in 1995.
• "Jeffty Is Five"
• "Knox"
• "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World"
• ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman" - One of the 12 most reprinted stories
• "Shatterday" - adapted as an episode of the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone
• "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin"
• "Soldier From Tomorrow" - adapted by Ellison in his script for Outer Limits episode "Soldier". The film The Terminator had sufficient similarities to the story that later prints of the film acknowledge Ellison.
• "Try a Dull Knife"
• "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs"
• "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?"
• "Paladin of the Lost Hour"
• "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" Included in the Best American Short Stories anthology for 1993, this story is considered a modern Ellison classic.

Recent uncollected stories

Since the publication of the author's last collection of previously uncollected stories, Slippage (1997), Ellison has published the following works of fiction:

• "Objects of Desire in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear" (1999) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction October/November issue)
• "The Toad Prince or, Sex Queen of the Martian Pleasure-Domes" (1999) (Amazing Stories issue 600)
• "From A to Z, In the Sarsaparilla Alphabet" (2001) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction February issue)
• "Incognita, Inc." (2001) (Hemispheres, the Inflight Magazine of United Airlines January issue)
• "Never Send to Know for Whom the Lettuce Wilts" (2002) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction January issue)
• "Goodbye to All That" (2002) (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales anthology edited by Michael Chabon)
• "Loose Cannon, or Rubber Duckies from Space" (2004) (Amazing Stories issue 603)
• "Prologue to the Endeavor: Luck be a Lady Tonight" (2006) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction September issue)
• "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" (2010) (Realms of Fantasy February issue)
• "Weariness" (2012) (Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury)
• "He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes" (2014) (Subterranean Magazine, The Final Issue, August 2014 online)

Notes

• "Objects ..." was later included in the 2001 revised and expanded edition of The Essential Ellison.
• "From A to Z ..." was later included in Deathbird Stories: Expanded Edition released in 2011 by Subterranean Press.
• "The Toad Prince ..." is a novelette which, according to the author's afterword, was originally written in the early 1990s.
• "Incognita, Inc." was reprinted the same year, in Realms of Fantasy (August 2001). It was also reprinted in 2001 in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and most recently in 2007 in Summer Chills edited by Stephen Jones.
• "Never Send to Know ..." is a heavily revised, expanded and retitled version of an Ellison story originally published in 1956. It was also included in the 2001 reprint collection Troublemakers.
• "Goodbye to All That" was originally written in the mid-90s for the Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor comic series, but was not included at the time due to the series ceasing publication. It was finally incorporated into the series in March 2007 as part of Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor: Volume Two.
• "Loose Cannon" is a 200-word piece of flash fiction accompanied by an 800-word introduction by Neil Gaiman as part of the magazine's series of 1,000 words inspired by a painting.
• "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" was reprinted in 2010 in Unrepentant: A Celebration of the Writings of Harlan Ellison edited by Robert T. Garcia.

Graphic story adaptations

Several stories have been adapted and collected into comic book stories for Dark Horse Comics. They can be found in two volumes. Each issue of the comic included a new original story based on the cover.

• "Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, Vol. One" was published by Dark Horse Comics in 1996.
• "Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, Vol. Two" was published by Dark Horse Comics in association with Edgeworks Abbey, Ellison's own imprint, in 2007
• Stories written specifically for the Dream Corridor series, based on paintings by artists.
  • "Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral" (Paintings by Stephen Hickman and Michael Whelan)
  • "Pulling Hard Time" (Painting by Sam Raffa)
  • "Anywhere But Here, With Anyone But You" (Painting by Leo and Diane Dillon)
  • "Chatting with Anubis" (Painting by Jane McKenzie)
  • "The Museum on Cyclops Avenue" (Painting by Ron Brown)
• "Phoenix Without Ashes" was published by IDW as a comic book.
• "Harlan Ellison's 7 Against Chaos" was published as hardcover, stand-alone graphic novel by DC Comics, with illustrations by Paul Chadwick and coloring by Ken Steacy in July 2013.

Video games

• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Audio recordings (selection)

• Harlan! Harlan Ellison Reads Harlan Ellison - released 1976, Alternate World Recordings
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 1 - released 1983, reissued 2001 on Deep Shag Records
• The Voice From the Edge, Vol.1: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - released 1999 on Fantastic Audio and Audible.com 2011
• The Voice From the Edge, Vol.2: Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral - released 2001 on Fantastic Audio, and Audible.com 2011
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 2 - released 2004 on Deep Shag Records
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 3 - released 2007 on Deep Shag Records
• The Voice From the Edge, Vol. 3: Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes - released 2009 on Blackstone Audio and Audible.com 2011
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 4 - released 2010 on Deep Shag Records
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 5 - released 2011 on Deep Shag Records
• The Voice From the Edge, Vol. 4: The Deathbird & Other Stories - Audible.com 2011
• The Voice From the Edge, Vol. 5: Shatterday & Other Stories - Audible.com 2011
• On the Road with Ellison Volume 6 - released 2012 on Deep Shag Records

Memoirs

On the May 30, 2008 broadcast of the PRI radio program Studio 360, Ellison announced that he had signed with a "major publisher" to produce his memoirs. The tentative title is Working Without a Net. That title first appears in the television show Babylon 5, for which Ellison was a creative consultant. In an episode titled "TKO", the fictional character Susan Ivanova is once seen in year 2258 reading, and laughing to, a book titled Working Without A Net, by Harlan Ellison.

Current publications

The print-on-demand publisher Edgeworks Abbey/E-Reads publishes works by Ellison.

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream was included in American Fantastic Tales, volume II (from the 1940s to now), edited by Peter Straub and published by the Library of America in 2009. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century edited by Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) included Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs."

In October 2010, a special hardcover collection Unrepentant: A Celebration of the Writings of Harlan Ellison (Garcia Publishing Services, 2010) was issued by MadCon, a convention in Wisconsin at which Ellison was the guest of honor. In addition to including "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" (previously published in "Realms of Fantasy" magazine,) it also included "'Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman", "Some Frightening Films of the Forties" (a never before reprinted essay,) an illustrated bibliography of Ellison's fiction books by Tim Richmond, an article by Robert T. and Frank Garcia on Ellisons television work, an appreciation/essay by Dark Horse Comics publisher Michael Richardson, an article about Deep Shag's audio recordings of Ellison speaking engagements by Michael Reed, a 6-page B&W gallery of covers by Leo and Diane Dillon, a two-page Neil Gaiman-drawn cartoon and an official biography.

In March 2011, Subterranean Press released an expanded edition of Deathbird Stories featuring new introductory material, new afterwords and three additional stories (the never-before-collected "From A to Z, in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet", together with "Scartaris, June 28th", and "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore").

In November 2011, Edgeworks Abbey (Ellison's personal publishing arm) and Spectrum Fantastic, published a pocket-sized gift book entitled Bugf#ck: The Useless Wit & Wisdom of Harlan Ellison. It contains quotes on writing, sex, politics, love and war, as well as pertinent excerpts from his short stories, and a handful of personal photographs of the author. In December 2011, Edgeworks Abbey began publishing original collections and retrospectives in two different series: the Brain Movies series (which contain teleplays from Ellison's award-winning career as a screenwriter) and the Harlan 101 series (which contain reprints, and original, unpublished stories and essays, and serve as an introduction to Ellison's writings). December 1, 2011 saw the simultaneous publication of four books: Brain Movies: Volume One, Brain Movies: Volume Two, Harlan 101: Encountering Ellison, and The Sound of a Scythe and Three Brilliant Novellas.

In May 2012, Kicks Books published Pulling a Train, the first of two reprints of early writings by Ellison, originally published in pulp magazines and in paperbacks for the crime fiction market. Simultaneously, the publisher of "Deep Shag" Records released "On the Road With Ellison, Volume Six".

In October 2012, Kicks Books published Getting in the Wind, the second half of a reissue of stories originally published as Sex Gang, under Ellison's Paul Merchant pseudonym in the 1950s.

In November 2012, Edgeworks Abbey published None of the Above, an unproduced screenplay adaptation (written for director Costa-Gavras) of Norman Spinrad's novel, Bug Jack Barron, and Rough Beasts, seventeen, never-before-collected pulp stories from the 1950s.

In April 2013, Hardcase Crime - publishers of original and reprint paperback crime fiction - published a reprint of Web of the City.

In May 2013, Edgeworks Abbey published Brain Movies: Volume Three and Brain Movies: Volume Four, two further collections of Ellison's teleplays, including two unproduced pilots.

And on July 16, 2013, DC Comics will publish, in hardcover, Harlan Ellison's 7 Against Chaos, illustrated by Paul Chadwick.

In November 2013, Edgeworks Abbey and HarlanEllisonbooks.com published, Brain Movies: Volume Five, including a treatment for an unproduced episode of Batman, an unproduced, original teleplay, "The Dark Forces", and several others. And Honorable Whoredom at a Penny A Word is another collection - similar to Getting in the Wind, etc. - which collects Ellison's older, earlier fiction, written when he was learning his craft. This book collects stories written for men's magazines, "confessional" and other digests of the pulp era, such as "The Golden Virgin", "Scum Town" and "They Killed My Kid!".

Edgeworks Abbey released four volumes in 2014: 8 in 80 by Ellison edited by Susan Ellison, Again, Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word, Brain Movies: Volume Six, and Harlan Ellison's Endlessly Watching.

In 2014, Subterranean Press published The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, collecting twenty-three of Ellison's Nebula, Hugo, Bram Stoker, Edgar, Best American Short Story and Locus-Award winning short fiction.

In December 2015, Subterranean Press published Can & Can'tankerous, containing previously uncollected short stories by Harlan Ellison.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth (film)

On Thursday, April 19, 2007, Dreams with Sharp Teeth received its first public screening at the Writers Guild Theatre in Los Angeles. The documentary about Ellison and his work was written and directed by Erik Nelson with archival footage of Ellison. It was released on DVD by New Video Group on May 26, 2009.

Awards

Ellison has won eight Hugo Awards, a shared award for the screenplay of A Boy and his Dog that he counts as "half an Hugo" and two special awards from annual World SF Conventions; four Nebula Awards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA); five Bram Stoker Awards of the Horror Writers Association (HWA); two Edgar Awards of the Mystery Writers of America; two World Fantasy Award from annual conventions; and two Georges Méliès fantasy film awards.

Stephen King in his 1981 book about the horror genre, Danse Macabre, reviewed Ellison's collection Strange Wine and considered it one of the best horror books published between 1950 and 1980.

Ellison won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1993. HWA gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996 and the World Horror Convention named him Grand Master in 2000. He was awarded the Gallun Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction from I-CON in 1997. SFWA named him its 23rd Grand Master of fantasy and science fiction in 2006 and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2011. That year he also received the fourth J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction, presented by the UCR Libraries at the 2011 Eaton SF Conference, "Global Science Fiction".

As of 2013, Ellison is the only three-time winner of the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. He won his other Nebula in the novella category.

He was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by International PEN, the international writers' union. In 1990, Ellison was honored by International PEN for continuing commitment to artistic freedom and the battle against censorship. In 1998, he was awarded the "Defender of Liberty" award by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

In March 1998, the National Women's Committee of Brandeis University honored him with their 1998 Words, Wit, Wisdom award. In 1990, Ellison was honored by International PEN for continuing commitment to artistic freedom and the battle against censorship.

Ellison was named 2002's winner of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal's "Distinguished Skeptic Award", in recognition of his contributions to science and critical thinking. Ellison was presented with the award at the Skeptics Convention in Burbank, California, June 22, 2002.

In December 2009, Ellison was nominated for a Grammy award in the category Best Spoken Word Album For Children for his reading of Through the Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There for Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (USA)

• Golden Scroll (Best Writing - Career 1976)

American Mystery Award

• Soft Monkey (best short story, 1988)

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine Reader's Poll

• I, Robot screenplay (Special award, 1988)

Audio Publishers Association

• The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcript of the 1912 Senatorial Investigation (Best "Multi-Voiced Presentation", 1999)
• City of Darkness (Best Solo Narration, 1999)

Best American Short Stories

• The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore (included in the 1993 anthology)

The Bradbury Award

• Given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000 to Harlan Ellison and Yuri Rasovsky for the radio series 2000X.

Bram Stoker Award

• The Essential Ellison (best collection, 1987)
• Harlan Ellison's Watching (best non-fiction, 1989 - tie)
• Mefisto in Onyx (best novella, 1993 - tie)
• Chatting With Anubis (best short story, 1995)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, 1995
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (best other media - audio, 1999)

British Fantasy Award

• Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1979)

British Science Fiction Award

• Deathbird Stories (best collection, 1978)

Deathrealm Award

• Mefisto in Onyx (best short story, 1996)

Edgar Allan Poe Award

• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (best short story, 1974)
• Soft Monkey (best short story, 1988)

Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award

• Demon with a Glass Hand/The Outer Limits (Achievement in Science Fiction Television, 1972)
• The City on the Edge of Forever/Star Trek (Achievement in Science Fiction Television, 1973)

Hugo Award

• ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman" (best short fiction, 1966)
• "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (best short story, 1968)
• The City on the Edge of Forever (best dramatic presentation, 1968)
• Dangerous Visions (special award, 1968)
• "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" (best short story, 1969)
• Again, Dangerous Visions (special award for excellence in anthologizing, 1972)
• "The Deathbird" (best novelette, 1974)
• "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W" (best novelette, 1975)
• A Boy and His Dog (film - best dramatic presentation, 1976. The Hugo was originally given to the producers, but after Ellison complained that as author of the original story on which L. Q. Jones's screenplay was based, he deserved to share in the award. But no extra statuette could be found, so he was given the base of one to mollify him, which he calls his "half Hugo".)
• "Jeffty Is Five" (best short story, 1978)
• "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (best novelette, 1986)

International Horror Guild Award

• 1994 Living Legend Award

Jupiter Award (Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education)

• The Deathbird (best short story, 1973
• Jeffty is Five (best short story, 1977)

Locus Poll Award

• The Region Between (best short fiction, 1970)
• Basilisk (best short fiction, 1972)
• Again, Dangerous Visions (best anthology, 1972)
• The Deathbird (best short fiction, 1974)
• Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W (best novelette, 1975)
• Croatoan (best short story, 1976)
• Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1978) (best short story of all time, 1999 online poll)
• Count the Clock That Tells the Time (best short story, 1979)
• Djinn, No Chaser (best novellette, 1983)
• Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (best related non-fiction, 1985)
• Medea: Harlan's World (best anthology, 1986)
• Paladin of the Lost Hour (best novelette, 1986)
• With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole (best short story, 1986)
• Angry Candy (best collection, 1989)
• The Function of Dream Sleep (best novellette, 1989)
• Eidolons (best short story, 1989)
• Mefisto in Onyx (best novella, 1994)
• Slippage (best collection, 1998)

Nebula Award

• "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (best short story, 1965)
• A Boy and His Dog (best novella, 1969)
• Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1977)
• Grand Master Award (at Tempe, Arizona, May 6, 2006)
• How Interesting: A Tiny Man (best short story, tied with Kij Johnson/"Ponies" 2011)

Prometheus Award

• "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (2015 Hall of Fame Inductee)

Saturn Award

• A Boy and His Dog (Best Fantasy film, 1976)

Writers Guild of America

• Demon with a Glass Hand/The Outer Limits (Best Original Teleplay)
• The City on the Edge of Forever/Star Trek(Best Original Teleplay)
• Phoenix Without Ashes/The Starlost (Best Written Dramatic Episode, 1974)
• Paladin of the Lost Hour/The Twilight Zone (Best Anthology Episode/Single Program, 1987)

Writers Guild of Canada

• The Human Operators/The Outer Limits (2000)

World Fantasy Award

• Angry Candy (Best Collection, 1988)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, 1993

J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction

• 2011 recipient (Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, University of California-Riverside Libraries)

Parodies and pastiches of Ellison

In the 1970s, artist and cartoonist Gordon Carleton wrote and drew a scripted slide show called "City on the Edge of Whatever", which was a spoof of "The City on the Edge of Forever". Occasionally performed at Star Trek conventions, it features an irate writer named "Arlan Hellison" who screamed at his producers, "Art defilers! Script assassins!"

In the 1971 novel by Larry Niven and David Gerrold, The Flying Sorcerers, the names and characteristics of the local gods are playful derivatives of those of many science fiction authors and editors. The Ellison reference is "Elcin", the tiny god of thunder and lightning—alluding to Ellison's short stature and stormy personality.

Ben Bova's 1975 novel The Starcrossed, a roman à clef about Bova and Ellison's experience on The Starlost TV series, features a character "Ron Gabriel" who is a pastiche of Ellison. Bova's novel is dedicated to Ellison's pseudonym "Cordwainer Bird", who was credited as series creator on The Starlost per Ellison's demand. In the novel, "Ron Gabriel" requires the fictional series producers to credit him under the pseudonym "Victor Lawrence Talbot Frankenstein".

Robert Silverberg named a character in his first novel, Revolt on Alpha C, for Ellison, who was a neighbor of Silverberg in New York at the time he was writing the book. This was confirmed in a special edition on the occasion of Silverberg's 35th year in the business.

Ellison's self-description

At Stephen King's request, Ellison provided a description of himself and his writing in Danse Macabre. "My work is foursquare for chaos. I spend my life personally, and my work professionally, keeping the soup boiling. Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer dangerous; I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, desperado. I see myself as a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket. My stories go out from here and raise hell. From time to time some denigrater or critic with umbrage will say of my work, 'He only wrote that to shock.' I smile and nod. Precisely."

Personal life

In 1966, Ellison married his third wife, Lory Patrick. The marriage lasted only seven weeks.

In 1976, he married his fourth wife, Lori Horowitz. He was 41 and she was 19. He said of the marriage, "I was desperately in love with her, but it was a stupid marriage on my part." They were divorced after eight months.

Ellison lives in Los Angeles with Susan, his fifth wife, whom he married in 1986. In 1994, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized for quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery. Since 2010 ("the worst, the lowest point in my life"), he also suffers from, and is under treatment for, clinical depression.

On about October 10, 2014, Ellison suffered a stroke. Although his speech and cognition are unimpaired, he suffered paralysis on his right side, for which he was expected to spend several weeks in physical therapy before being released from the hospital.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]