'##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!! ##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #303 !! ##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: =========================================== #########: ##:::: ##: ######::: "Harlan Ellison Responds in an Out of !! ##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: Context and Pointless Manner to an !! ##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: Equally Out of Context and Pointless !! ##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: Usenet Capture" !! ..:::::..::::.....::::........:: by -> Squinky 12/3/98 !! !!========================================================================!! THE HARLAN ELLISON "SLIPPAGE/SUSAN" CONTROVERSY: THE FOLLOWING FEW MESSAGES WERE COLLECTED BY RICK WYATT FROM USENET ARCHIVES. I'VE INCLUDED THREE MESSAGES FROM MAY 1998 CONSTITUTING AN ATTACK ON THE DELAYED PUBLISHING OF _SLIPPAGE_ AND INDICATING THAT SUSAN, HARLAN'S WIFE, HAS MADE HIM "LOSE HIS TOUCH"....FOLLOWED BY RESPONSES FROM DAVID GERROLD AND HARLAN HIMSELF. I'M NOT GOING TO INCLUDE THE REST OF THE CRAP THAT WAS POSTED OR THE OTHER RESPONSES ASIDE FROM MR. GERROLD'S. SORRY. !!========================================================================!! Subject: Re: Edgeworks (Future Volumes) From: jwk208@is8.nyu.edu (Jarett Kobek) Date: 1998/05/06 Message-ID: <6iqdmi$v27$1@news.nyu.edu> Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison [More Headers] [Subscribe to alt.fan.harlan-ellison] Paul T. Riddell (priddell@usa.net) wrote: > early grave as s/he spends weeks sorting it all. I've come to learn > that waiting for a new Ellison collection is half of the fun: my wife > ordered a copy of the Ziesing print of _Slippage_ for Christmas 1996 > that I didn't get until April, but it was worth every last second. Yeah, hah, hah, real "fun". I waited for _SLIPPAGE_ to be released since like 1934, (well, 1994). Real "fun", wading through an author's lies about release dates and his idiotic justifications being remouthed through fans. Hah hah ah! It's so fun! -Jarett !!========================================================================!! Subject: Has Ellison lost his touch? From: inpoverty@aol.com (InPoverty) Date: 1998/05/02 Message-ID: <1998050223342300.TAA17371@ladder01.news.aol.com> Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison [More Headers] [Subscribe to alt.fan.harlan-ellison] Ever since his marriage to Susan, his output has dropped quite a bit... Now that he is finally happy, he seems to have lost inspiration for new material... Most of his stories were semi-autobiographical where he'd disguse himself as a lonely, bitter man afraid of getting lost in the shuffle... Who knows how long his legacy will live on.... Other than the "Glass Teat" there really isn't much of his work to discuss... Everytime a story of his is brought up, it's followed by "I loved that story" or "Great story" and that would be the end of it... To say you hate a story, brings about the "Then why are you reading this newsgroup?" messages.... BTW, what do you people read when you're not reading Ellison? I took an Ellison break the last few months where I tried to catch up on the works of Thomas Ligotti, Paul Auster, and James P. Blaylock... !!========================================================================!! Subject: Re: Has Ellison lost his touch? From: jwk208@is8.nyu.edu (Jarett Kobek) Date: 1998/05/04 Message-ID: <6ijf0b$9ad$1@news.nyu.edu> Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison [More Headers] [Subscribe to alt.fan.harlan-ellison] BOBMORALES (bobmorales@aol.com) wrote: > Harlan's imput slowed because of various maladies, not because he got > happily married, for Christ's sake. Anyone who know them will tell > you--as will Harlan--she's been chiefly responsible for keeping him > together the last decade or so. So give her her due. Ah, whatever. Honestly, Susan *is* responsible for Ellison's decline as a writer. She's also responsible for him keeping it together as a human being. As, however, none of us are honestly concerned with Ellison the HUMAN BEING (with several notable exceptions, Lawrence Watt-Evans, perhaps? certainyl not D.J.L.), it's a valid point to be made she has done more harm than good. What young master Ellison has fallen into is the trap that all relationships serve up: complacency. People in relationships get complacent and lazy and don't do anything to rock the boat, for fear it will disrupt their current status of actual (perceived) happiness. > As for how original Harlan's work has been, you might liken him to jazz > musician working out new riffs: Slippage contains two trial runs for > The Man Who Rowed Christopher Colombus Ashore; "Christopher Colombo", "Scarlatis", and "Anywhere but here" are the only things in _Slippage_ which are up against Ellison's best work. The rest is absolutely terrible or just rehashes of stories we've already seen a thousand times, said in much firmer voices. "Jane Doe #1354125" is a good example. _Mefisto In Onyx_ is a depressing piece of work because it *should* be so good, but just comes off as a horrible rendering of where Ellison's mind really is: trapped in the seventies. Who the fuck thinks about race relations like that anymore? --- And to satisfy the circle-jerk: C.G. Jung, Robert E. Howard and related fandom, Thomas Ligotti, Antonin Artaud, J.K. Huysmans, Edgar Poe, Falkner, Algernon Blackwood, etc. etc. Stuff no one cares about. !!========================================================================!! Subject: Harlan and Susan From: davgerrold@aol.com (DavGerrold) Date: 1998/05/08 Message-ID: <1998050807022900.DAA09395@ladder03.news.aol.com> Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison [More Headers] [Subscribe to alt.fan.harlan-ellison] Jarett Kobek wrote: >>Honestly, Susan *is* responsible for Ellison's decline as a writer. She's also responsible for him keeping it together as a human being. As, however, none of us are honestly concerned with Ellison the HUMAN BEING (with several notable exceptions, Lawrence Watt-Evans, perhaps? certainyl not D.J.L.), it's a valid point to be made she has done more harm than good. << Bullshit. And you're lucky you're not in the same room with me or you'd be picking up your teeth off the floor and carrying them home in your pocket. I've known Harlan for 30 years, and I knew Susan two years before she met Harlan. I love them both dearly. Susan is a talented and intelligent woman, and she has given Harlan what he most needs in this world. She has also made it possible for Harlan to continue growing and exploring his own humanity. The record of Harlan's work is a self-documented journey of personal growth and commitment that is humbling. The only other man I ever knew so committed to continuing his own education was Robert A. Heinlein. That anyone judges either Harlan or Susan simply by the output of Harlan's typewriter is such a narrow-minded vision that it's mind-boggling. The job of the writer is to report back. But first he has to go to the other side of the hill and take a good look around so he has something to report back. Harlan is being true to the one person he most needs to be true to -- himself. David Gerrold !!========================================================================!! Subject: MESSAGE FROM HARLAN! From: davgerrold@aol.com (DavGerrold) Date: 1998/05/10 Message-ID: <1998051000150600.UAA17142@ladder03.news.aol.com> Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison [More Headers] [Subscribe to alt.fan.harlan-ellison] From: Harlan Ellison Via: David Gerrold To: Those who have posted at this site for the past several days. My good friend David Gerrold has responded to my request for a download of what you-all have been saying these last few moons, by kindly sending along everything since Mr, Kobek's comments on the 7th of this month. I should hasten to note that even though I choose not to own or use equipment that would provide unending access to your venue every once in a while some "concerned" observer will disturb my decades-long slumber (if Mr, Robert Whelan's estimation of my career is to be taken as accurate) and launch a gardyloo that ticks my curiosity, so that I break my own rule about staying out of earshot of internet opinions. Oddly, I'm a lot less than bothered by the less-than-flattering entries, I have a belief that that is exactly why the web exists, to provide a place for those who cannot create art to piss and moan about those of us who break our asses in a lifelong attempt to do the job properly. Even Mr. Kobek, who doesn't think I'm worth very much on the market these days, who thinks--like most children his age-that only They have the Wisdom that has fled the rest of us, even he seems to read my work. Don't know why, but I'm am always grateful for such crumbs of attention from The FX Generation. As always, I get to evaluate my own worth as an artist and as a human being, by those who are prepared to call themselves my friends. Lawrence Watt-Evans, Bob Morales, David, these are exemplary fellows...and Mr. Kobek, though graciousness in clearly not a tongue you speak, you really ought to refrain from calling those who know me better, and who--unlike you--know what they're talking about, my "tools." Anyone who knows these three guys or knows me even casually, knows that I despise sycophancy, have friends who'll tell me what a loud, obnoxious, imbecile adolescent I an (without bidding, and on a moment's notice),) and knows that they are very much Their Own Men. They don't toady for me, they just share my annoyance at banjo players who had a big breakfast. Oh, I forgot, you're only eleven years old, and won't catch that allusion. It means: a know-nothing who likes to shoot his yap off. (See, you were wrongs Susan hasn't mellowed me all that much.) But let's got to some conversation of substance, shall we? Mr. Kobek and Mr. Farber and Mr. Davies seem utterly bout out of shape because SLIPPAGE came out in March of 1997, instead of 1991 when it was first idly mentioned as forthcoming. Apart from the ludicrousness of their paranoid reasoning as to why it wasn't right there when the stamped their widdle foots for a fix, let me illuminate the ignorance and naivete of their insulting assumptions. The truth will be vastly less filled with areas for them to bitch about, but it will reveal to all the rest of you the perils pursuant to mistaking the cawing of carrion birds for the sweet song of the nightingale. In 1991 I signed a contract with a small press publisher to do a limited edition of my next collection, SLIPPAGE. The trade edition was under contract to Houghton Mifflin--the last of a 3-book deal--it was untitled by HM, but SLIPPAGE would have been that book. The book was intended for, probably, 1992 release. But a number of things sidetracked no. MIND FIELDS, which required my attention; a rather unpleasant earthquake that cost me about a year of digging out from under; a number of shattering deaths of my friends, including Bob Bloch and Isaac Asimov and Roger Zelazny and...well, lots more; spinal surgery an Susan; the depredations of a quartet of scumbags and their running dogs that required endless hours of wasted effort in attempts to prevent them from driving me either out of the game entirely, or out of my mind, which depredations merely resulted in my having (What do they call it?) a "coronary episode" and a quadruple heart bypass, procedure. All this and much more, rather, uh, slowed me down. Sorry if that inconvenienced you, fellahs, but if you were ts upset at my tardiness, all you had to do was ask for your money back...if in fact, you'd laid out any in advance, or were you just grousing without having anything at stake? The book wouldn't have come out in 1992, anyhow. (Sorry that the one lone mention of it in a "forthcoming" column made you so deranged. Clearly, the printed word Is not salutary to your health. I urge you to stay here, on this electronic playground.) The stories I wanted to go into the book were simply taking me more time to write than I'd ancipated. The entries at this site that pointed out I'm always struggling to innovate, they had it right. I work hard at what I do and sometimes art, even Art, refuses to obey arbitrary deadlines. But by 1994, the small-press publisher was in financial troubles and he couldn't do the book, so I returned his money, and took my time finishing SLIPPAGE. At my own pace. Not Mr. Kobek's. Not Mr. Whelan's. But, even so--and here's where your lack of Information makes you look a trifle foolish for your blustery accusations that I'm a big fat liar--in the 24 July 1995 issue of Publishers Weekly, the bible of the publishing world, on page 68 there was printed, all the world--and even you--to see, the following notice: ATTENTION BOOKSELLERS: Harlan Ellison's new collections, Slippage, originally scheduled for publication in August 1995, has been temporarily postponed to accomodate the addition of newly written, previously uncollected stories. The expanded table of contents will bring the new collection to more than 100,000 words. Look for announcement of the new publication date in Upcoming Houghton Mifflin catalogues. Then I finished the book. And by that time the limited edition had been resigned this time with Ziesing. By contract, I guaranteed Mark Ziesing six months clear time to sell his limited, boxed and signed edition before publication of a trade or book club edition that might interfere with his exclusivity. The book was scheduled to Ship in November of 1996, in time for Christmas. It came out in March, after Christmas. Now, let's take the gloves off, guys. I'm fed to the eyeballs with the horse faces you clowns cointinue to drop, all of which redound to my sloth, ineptitude, inconstancy, laggardliness, and just all-around inconvenience to your Noble Selves. As if I really give a shit that you had to wait three months for a book as good, and as well-made as SLIPPAGE. But, in truth, the short and simple of it was this: Mark Ziesing tried a new typesetter on the books and she was an amateur and she screwed it up royally, and I wouldn't let it pass, and we started back at square one with the eminent John Snowden of Victoria Magnetics in Atlanta. Square one, you pinhead Whelan. We (meaning the designers, Arnie Fenner, and my assistant, and my wife) had to reproof over 100,000 words of copy in three weeks. Just so insulting pukes like you wouldn't be able to piss and moan about "typos." We all worked our butts off, and the book came out three months late. Not eight years late, from that idle mention in 1991, but three months. That's it. Three lousy months. Still feel as though you're been hideously Imposed upon? Let me be absolutely candid. I write for me. I write at my pace and I do the best I can every time out. But I owe people like you, Mr. Davies, and Mr. Whelan, and Mr, Farber, absolutely nothing but my best work. And if that isn't good enough for you, I urge you to stop reading my work just so you can beat your meat about how old and weary and complacent and out of date and empty I am. Go read someone better. There are lots of them, and I'm sure they'd love to hear your excruciatingly insightful analyses of their uselessness. To Warchild and Paul Riddell and Michael Benedetti and Karen Williams and Mark E. Smith and the several other of you whose sane responses put you in line to be called "tool" by such bad-mannered adolescents, my thanks. My thanks not for necessarily thinking I beat Shakespeare, or even Donald Westlake, at the craft, but thank you for your reasoned and sane replies. If you get real addresses to David Gerrold I'll send you each a signed copy of my next-finished story. Not much of a gift, but something real, nonetheless. Harlan Ellison !!========================================================================!! Any typos in the above are my fault, not Harlan's. (Or blame the scanner.) Folks who want to send Harlan their real world addresses via me should send them to 70307.544@compuserve.com. (Do not use the AOL address because e-mail to that account gets buried with all the junk e-mail from porn-purveyors, so I just delete it all without reading any of it.) David Gerrold !!========================================================================!! !! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! #302 -- WRITTEN BY: SQUINKY -- 12/3/98 !!