Thoughts on The Last Dangerous Visions Edited by Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski
This is not a book review, because at this time I don’t plan to read the entire volume. I borrowed The Last Dangerous Visions from the library to read the introduction and afterword by Straczynski, which comprise almost seventy-five pages, and to see what has become of Ellison’s original compilation. In fact, not much is left of what would have been the monumental conclusion of the Dangerous Visions trilogy. Although only Ellison’s name is on the cover, this iteration was edited by Straczynski, and few of the one hundred twenty stories Ellison gathered for TLDV, which he had intended at one time to release in three volumes, made the cut. So this is a new anthology using some of the original stories and other stories that Straczynski solicited, along with a lengthy treatise on TLDV and why it never got published as it was supposed to in 1974 but instead remained in a sort of limbo.
When I attended the Clarion West Workshop in 1973, the second volume, Again, Dangerous Visions, had just been published, and Ellison was actively seeking stories for TLDV. Some of my classmates, including David Wise and Russell Bates, had already sold him stories, and I was deeply envious of those sales. However, my own work was not yet up to professional standards.
Russell Bates was a Kiowa Native American, and Ellison had bought two stories from him, which were combined and appear on the table of contents as “Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending: 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman.” For a time, Russ became a houseguest at Ellison Wonderland, Ellison’s home in Sherman Oaks, and he inspired and assisted with two chapters, called “The Red Man’s Burden,” in Ellison’s compilation of TV and film criticism The Other Glass Teat. Besides the particular excellence of Russ’s stories, including these tales would have relieved the monotony of white male authors in much of the rest of the book. Ellison was especially pleased about that. However, Russ’s stories did not make it into Straczynski’s anthology.
Russ and I became good friends, even being roommates for a short time in Los Angeles while we worked on a teleplay that never got produced. We lost touch for a few decades while I took off on my worldwide wanderings, but after my Greek wife and I settled in Thessaloniki to raise our sons, we reconnected via email. In one note he confided that he had withdrawn his stories from TLDV so he could sell them elsewhere, supposing that the anthology would never be made, and that Ellison had been furious. But then Russ died, and the stories never did get published. When I heard that Straczynski was reviving TLDV, I wrote to him about Russ’s stories and encouraged him to try to get them back from Russ’s family if he could. I never received an answer; I don’t know if Straczynski ever got my message. I have read both of Russ’s Native American-themed stories, though, and their inclusion would have greatly strengthened the book. After fifty years, omissions are of course inevitable, but the loss of Russ’s stories is grievous.
“Ellison Exegesis,” the lengthy essay by Straczynski that opens the book, is mainly an explanation of why Ellison never finished The Last Dangerous Visions. I found it extremely traumatic to read. My testimony is similar to Straczynski’s: reading a story by Ellison, in my case “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” is what gave me the inspiration to become a writer, and having Ellison as a teacher at Clarion West stoked the flame. For a time I devoured anything I could find of Ellison’s books. When Pyramid reissued numerous Ellison titles in a series of paperback editions in the 70s I bought them all and eagerly read them; I kept them with me as I moved from place to place and only sold them when I got rid of almost all my possessions before setting out on the road to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. As a result of living overseas for thirty-five years, I missed the whole horror story of Ellison’s decline and fall. To me, he was a literary hero, and in the mid-1970s when I left the country he was at the top of his form, winning awards right and left and in great demand as a teacher at workshops and a guest at conventions.
Reading Straczynski’s account was a profound shock. He explains that Ellison suffered severely from bipolar disorder and manic depression, and the condition manifested more and more as he aged. The symptoms had been there all along, but for a time he managed to use his gregariousness and his literary genius to shroud them. However, as decades passed, the depression and erratic behavior intensified, until Ellison was hardly getting any work done, let alone a huge project such as The Last Dangerous Visions. He became more and more unstable until he attempted to kill himself with a gun and was briefly involuntarily incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. In desperation, he finally agreed to seek help and take medications. Soon after this, though, he died after a series of strokes.
It hurt me to read this. It hurt a lot. To realize what had happened to one of my literary heroes. I almost wish I hadn’t read it, but I suppose it was important that I did. However, when I finished, I could hardly bear to hold the book in my hands. As a result I won’t, at least for now, be reading the stories that Straczynski has compiled. I mean no disrespect to the authors; maybe I’ll get back to them later. For now, I just can’t.
I did, though, skim to the back of the book and read Straczynski’s afterword, “Tetelestai! Compiling The Last Dangerous Visions,” in which he explains his selection process. In it, there is a three page spread with Ellison’s original table of contents of one hundred twenty stories, including the stories of my classmates, which didn’t make the cut. It’s sad, really, because Russell Bates, David Wise, and others waited most of their lives for the privilege of being included in this anthology, but now that time will never come. What was once conceived as a monumental literary achievement has been pared down to a single volume of more manageable but far less gargantuan length. In expressing this, I do not mean to criticize Straczynski. I believe he did the best he could when faced with an all-but-impossible task. It’s just that the dream was so much more stupendous that the eventual reality. Anticipation built for decade after decade, and now that it is here, well, it’s better than nothing, but I can’t help but lament for what might have been.
As for Harlan Ellison, all I can say is rest in peace. I know that he was a staunch atheist, but I can’t help but fantasize that he was pleasantly surprised and that he and his wife Susan are reunited and enjoying a bit of rest and fun – somewhere, somehow.
As a postscript, I’d like to mention that John Grayshaw has conducted extensive research on what happened to the unpublished stories that Ellison bought for The Last Dangerous Visions. You can find the fascinating article on his findings, called “The Last Orphan Stories,” on the Amazing Stories website here.
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