CNN Interviews with Harlan Ellison, Bruce Sterling 147
half_cocked_jack writes "Over at the CNN Podcast area they have a program titled 'Hollywood's SciFi Summer'. It sounded interesting, so I downloaded it. Much to my surprise, the host, Renay San Miguel, seems to really know SF, and he interviewed Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, Bruce Sterling, and Len Wein on their views on how Hollywood handles SF. Great listening!"
Re:The Sterling-Ellison Connection (Score:5, Interesting)
Harlan was a wicked, wicked young man. His readings at Worldcon in NYC in the late 60's and early 70's were the stuff of massive panel debates. AND, fawning admiration by most of the attendees.
I can remember one piece that Harlan read an overtly raw sex piece from the dais at the Commodore Hotel, around the time that he published "I see a man sitting in a chair and the chair is biting his leg" in a collaboration with Robert Sheckley. I recall that Sheckley, Gunn, and Silverberg were all onthe panel and a room full of college kids had their first exposure to erotic literature.
The man wrote, and read, brilliantly. Yes, he has short-man's syndrome, but in his defense, he has taste and style and a willingness to explore just about anything as a writer.
From his Dangerous Visions anthologies to his scripts for Demon with a Glass Hand and City on the Edge of Forever to The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat, Ellison has cranked out a lifetime's work nearly every year for the first 20 years of his professional life. Only Isaac Asimov was more prolific.
Ellison had a legitimate, hard fought, lawsuit for copyright violation. Companies were reprinting his work and selling it without paying any royalty and Ellison had every right to fight for his property rights.
See, http://harlanellison.com/home.htm/ [harlanellison.com] for Ellison's (way out of date) home page and,
See, http://www.authorslawyer.com/c-ellison.shtml/ [authorslawyer.com] for the copyright action.
Bruce Sterling free books (Score:3, Interesting)
-Charles
Re:The Sterling-Ellison Connection (Score:4, Interesting)
Ellison on Religion (Score:3, Interesting)
C'mon. You know you want to tell us.
Please?
Re:The Sterling-Ellison Connection (Score:4, Interesting)
An under-medicated, short curmudgeon, with distinct bi-polar and antisocial traits who used his personality as a birth control device is a somewhat more accurate description of the Ellison I know.
He offered that insight on Hour 25. (Score:5, Interesting)
...back in the 80's. Hour 25 [hour25online.com] is now online-only, but it was a 2-hour Friday-night program on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, hosted by Mike Hodel and Mel Gilden, at the time, and Harlan was a frequent guest. No doubt, Eric Foss has the entire broadcast archived on tape somewhere [hour25.us].
From what I recall, Ellison said something like, "I attended a party in New York, along with some other writers, including L. Ron Hubbard, and Hubbard was saying something about 'Y'know what I should do? Invent a new religion. That's where all the real money is.' And, next thing you know, he came out with his next book, 'Dianetics'."
Re:In this Country, In this Era (Score:3, Interesting)
Capitalism? Only on eBay, auctions and garage sales. Otherwise, might as well call it corporate socialism. Govment makes more and more policies that are solely for benefit (or punishment) of industries or enterprises. That people might be involved is paid at best lip service.
Re:He offered that insight on Hour 25. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Sterling-Ellison Connection (Score:4, Interesting)
Why it has to be protected (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless things have changed a great deal recently, at this time in legel history it's all but necessary for writers to keep their work off the net unless the publisher releases it for that.
Almost all writers' contracts require that they sign over e-rights to the publisher as part of their contract, whether or not the publisher intends to do anything with them. The writer signs away the e-rights, or doesn't sign the contract.
Note that e-rights are rights to publish, not ownership. The writer still owns them.
Along comes the work, posted online. The author has to make an effort to protect the work, because signing the e-rights gave the publisher the right to release it. If the writer doesn't, they are in violation of their contract and the whole thing can be cancelled.
A few writers like Harlan can afford to take on a case like this themselves, and can afford to refuse to have an e-rights clause in their contract. Most can't. If they want to get the contract, they sign the whole thing, and they're stuck having to do their own police work.
If a writer has signed a publishing contract for the work that includes an e-rights clause they can't publish it on line, and they have to try to prevent others from doing so.
At least that's the way it was explained to me by Charlie Petit, Harlan's lawyer during the lawsuit, while I was serving as material witness and slated as expert witness. Harlan was protecting his own work because he wanted to, not because he had to, because he didn;t have to contend with these silly e-rights issues in contracts. He also did so because newer authors didn't have the resources to be doing things like this all the time, and he wanted to see this made public so they wouldn't get screwed out of being able to be authors.
Re:The Sterling-Ellison Connection (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, but any description of Harlan that leaves out the word "brilliant" is incomplete. I am yet another member of SFWA (just how many of us are on here?), and I first met the larger-than-life Harlan back in the Seventies. I know a ton of Harlan stories that range from his boyhood to the dead gopher to some private acts of kindness that would make your jaw drop. (And I'm not telling any of them.)
IIRC in the movie "My Favorite Year" there's a great line: "With Swan you forgive a lot."
Likewise Harlan.