Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Harlan Ellison is dead. He was a total prick, but he was a good writer.

- Wheggi

Aww ... fuck. In his case, I thought the curmudgeonliness was a feature, and not a bug.

I recall him saying on his old Scifi channel show in the '90s that he instructed his wife to burn all of his unpublished writings. Of course, he said a lot of things, and he's dead. So, maybe she'd like another payday.

He was a fixture in science fiction -- love 'im or 'ate 'im.
Shame that his idea for a generation ship TV show turned into a mess. That wasn't the first time that great scifi ideas were hamstrung by a minuscule budget.

T. Foster wrote:

I think Harlan Ellison would have been first to agree he was an asshole. He reveled in it. I can’t deny his talent and his position on the rights of those in the creative services, so that’s something nice.

- Wheggi

I wasn't intending to scold you for calling him an asshole, but rather pre-explaining why I don't have anything else to say on this topic. (A topic search can likely reveal pretty quickly what my usual reaction is when his name comes up in conversation: it starts with an F and ends with a "That Guy")

T. Foster wrote:I wasn't intending to scold you for calling him an asshole, but rather pre-explaining why I don't have anything else to say on this topic. (A topic search can likely reveal pretty quickly what my usual reaction is when his name comes up in conversation: it starts with an F and ends with a "That Guy")

Hahaha you are a much classier man than me, my friend!

- Wheggi

Adios asshole! I hope that you got paid!

I hope he got paid too.

Ellison...dammit, I know I said it on faeces-book but man I wish pen and paper gaming had a Harlan Ellison.

Hell at this point I'd settle for a Hunter S. Thompson.

We still have his books. And that's enough.

thedungeondelver wrote:Hell at this point I'd settle for a Hunter S. Thompson.

I assume you mean a better Hunter S. Thompson than HST-wannabe "TheRPGPundit"

Old school writers were not wusses.

tuna fisherman
itinerant farm worker
body guard
US soldier
punched out a college professor
punched out a critic

Best eulogy quote so far: "when you speak the truth, it’s not often in the service of seeking friends or winning admirers; it’s for communicating a message."
https://pastdaily.com/2018/06/28/harlan ... e-edition/

With Ellison, what many considered a bug, I considered a feature.

Isn’t he going into the earth?

T. Foster wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:Hell at this point I'd settle for a Hunter S. Thompson.

I assume you mean a better Hunter S. Thompson than HST-wannabe "TheRPGPundit"

That's what I was going to post, durnit.

Anyway, Ellison has written some great short stories in his life. I don't know much about his personality, or conflicts (when I read his stuff in the 1990s, there was no easy-to-access Internet to spoil these things for the average reader), but the stories will remain. Rest in peace.