Harlan Ellison is Suing Paramount and Pocket Books

[SeerSGB]

Originally Posted by Harlan Ellison
“I have no love for Paramount,” said Harlan Ellison, in an interview with Maggie Thompson, printed in Sci-Fi Universe in June 1995. “Paramount is not a studio…steeped in ethical behavior...The fanatics who feed off that whole money-making Trek franchise, who live it and breathe it, who don't merely watch the show, are to me the most pathetic creatures in the world; suckers being mulcted by venal Paramount, publishers of garbage novels with stock characters, hustlers and inheritors of Roddenberry's scam, and cult-like gurus who prey on Star Trek obsessives and Trekkies and Trekkers and Treksters and Trekoids and Treknoids and Trekiloids and Diploids and Dippies. They're like those sad couch potatoes who worship at the TV altars of The 700 Club and Home Shopping Channel, which are one and the same, whether the viewers are being fleeced in the name of Consumerism or Jesus. They are…absolutely the most pathetic creatures in the world. I mean, they talk about a TV series as if it were real life. They wear damned Star Trek uniforms. People change their names so they have the same names as the characters. Doesn't anyone else see the resemblance this all bears to the Branch Davidians or the Jonestown cults?”

Wow. Talk about hyperbole. If Trekkies made their followers drink poisoned Kool-Aid or had a violent stand-off with the FBI, then maybe his last statement would have a shred of merit. All I know is, SF fans don't have riots like sports fans, or even religious fanatics. -- RR

Well there was the Heaven's Gate incident. And yes, they were more than a nutter UFO cult, they were a nutter ST cult too. Someone showing up to jury duty in a ST Uniform. The boy in the 70s that committed suicide cause he couldn't be Vulcan. And as for riots, well that's all relative, as ST fans just hold rallies to save dead TV shows, attempts to raise money for said dead show rather than for people afflicted by one of the worse natural disasters in US history, and talk about kidnapping TV execs and making threats against them for canceling aforementioned show on internet forums.

Harlan is more right about ST fans, than he is wrong.

 

[pookha]

trash to raise money for said dead show rather than for people afflicted by one of the worse natural disasters in US history, .

how do you know people who try and save a show(and trek fans are not the only people to have rallied for a show and made efforts to try and save one) also dont give a lot in support of a lot of other things.

ps i think you are getting your natural disasters mixed up.


any way like i said at the start my feelings about harlan run both hot and cold.

i have heard a lot of good and bad about him over the years.
a lot from people who knew him fairly early on.

i have seen some of the good that he has done in person.

i do think harlan likes attention and a lot of the stuff he does in public is playing to an audience.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Ellison has released stories intended for inclusion in Last Dangerous Visions when the author (or representatives) have asked for it, and something like one or two dozen of the stories have appeared in other venues.

This quote from Ian Watson in Priest's The Last Deadloss Visions gives some idea of the process of withdrawing a story from Last Dangerous Visions:

I like Ellison's writing (see my review in 'Foundation' 24). I like his public stances. But I don't like his behaviour as editor of LAST, least of all his conduct when you eventually withdraw a story: the bluster, the arm-twisting (often by proxy), the sense that you're on a shit-list. I escaped comparatively unscathed -- but an author friend of mine was treated vilely. No one should have to put up with treatment such as this from a fellow writer. Ultimately this wipes out one's sense of the moral integrity of Ellison's other work. And that's a big shame. Ellison should realize this, and that he isn't defending his reputation by soldiering on with LAST using untruths and bullying and braggadocio. He's just damaging it.

Harry Harrison is quoted as the reason he didn't withdraw his story for publication elsewhere was friendship and affection for Ellison, though he admits that "The stories are gray with age, any value they might have had for the authors has long since been diminished to the vanishing point."

Michael Bishop on withdrawing his story:

Ellison would probably construe my saying so as an attempt at self-justification, however, because after I withdrew 'Dogs'Lives' (in the Fall of '83), he accused me of just about every conceivable personal failing from paranoia (he may have been right about that one) to betrayal to money-grubbing to self-righteous hypocrisy and concluded this page-and-a-half attack by saying that he wished to have "no further congress" with me.

It's impossible to read Priest's book and come away with any sort of justification for Harlan Ellison and his actions. Because if Harlan Ellison can be that incompetant and disignuous about a book he controls, then what does that say about Ellison in general.

I don't ever expect to see Last Dangerous Visions; Priest, writing fourteen years ago, did an analysis of the financial picture of publishing this 1.5 million word anthology, and there's almost no way that it would sell enough to justify the expense. (Mind you, there's actually reason to think that the volume would be longer than 1.5 million words. Ellison appears to have continued to buy stories for the collection.) That was fourteen years ago. The book market is a bit different today. I don't think the financial picture for Last Dangerous Visions has improved with age. Indeed, it's probably become far worse.

I didn't really come into this thread to bash Ellison over the most public failure of his career. But that's what Last Dangerous Visions is -- a public failure, because he's strung 150 authors along for thirty years, and he's strung fandom along with his pronouncements on the subject.

Fortunately, I think Ellison's really going to get the book published this time, as he's got David Gerrold and Steven R Boyett helping him out.

More power to him if he does.

But you have to ask -- if these stories were daring and edgy thirty years ago, will anyone care today? I can't put it any more eloquently than Priest:

When LAST was announced Watergate and Irangate had not happened. The USA was still embroiled in the Vietnam war, and men were walking on the moon. Half the world was communist, or communist-dominated. The Berlin Wall stood, Yugoslavia was one country, the Ayatollah Khomeini was in obscure exile in Paris. No one would have credited that a second-rate Hollywood actor and a former research chemist would for a time become the two most powerful leaders in the West.

Satellite TV and home video recorders did not exist. CD records did not exist. Home computers were used only by enthusiasts. A pocket calculator or a digital watch cost several hundred dollars.

Kim Philby, Brook Benton, Raymond Carver, the Shah of Iran, Robert A. Heinlein, Art Blakey, Mao Zedung, Graham Greene, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Joel McCrea, Leonid Brezhnev and John Lennon were still alive.

Salman Rushdie had not yet published any novels.

No one had heard of AIDS.

A baby born when Mr Ellison first started acquiring stories is now an adult.

Harlan Ellison, who was a young man when all this began, will be 60 in 1994.

The world's moved on.

 

[trevanian]

I didn't really come into this thread to bash Ellison over the most public failure of his career.

You make it sound like there are other significant failures. What, that it took him a few tries to find the right Missus? If his adaptation of I ROBOT is a failure just because they didn't make a film of it, I hope I have a few on that level.

DV was a landmark, but geez, I have never given a damn about whether this last one arrives. It'd be nice to read his intros, but if you consider his output (esp given that he was one of the very first people diagnosed and confirmed with chronic fatigue), it's amazing we get a quarter of what we do.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Other significant failures? Good question...

What rankles me with Ellison is his insistence upon turning any failure on his part into a sense of victimization and entitlement.

Warners was wise to pass on I, Robot -- it would have been the SFnal equivalent of Ishtar or Heaven's Gate, a financial boondogle to create an SF arthouse picture -- but Ellison portrays Warners' executives in his introduction to the screenplay as shortsighted, venal creatures against whom he had to battle in order to preserve his vision.

Or, his famous story about a pitch for the first Star Trek film where his story excited the Paramount suits -- until a request for Mayans sent him off into a rage.

Or The Starlost.

Or his claim that Spiro Agnew personally kept The Other Glass Teat from being published.

Or his Babylon 5 script.

I could go on.


Ellison's modus operandi is to turn a failure on his part into a personal attack upon him. His famous story about how "You don't fuck with the Mouse" is amusing -- until you realize how completely unprofessional Ellison was, and then you wonder why he's wanting you to laugh at his own stupidity. Yet, Ellison wants you to feel that Disney unjustly fired him for being funny.

Ellison, for all that he promotes himself as being a champion of writers and the written word, is ironically suing CBS and Pocket Books because David R. George III did something he, himself, could not do -- write a novel. My honest opinion? It's the fact that DRG3 wrote a novel that Ellison himself could not write is the thing that galls him the most. Not the belief that Pocket infringed upon his copyrights and trademarks. But that DRG3 was able to take Ellison's ideas -- and run with them, to the tune of 400,000 words and critical acclaim.

Ellison couldn't have done that.

I think that's what's so galling for Ellison. It's not a matter of right or wrong, legality or infringment. It's a question of pride.

 

[pookha]

As groundbreaking as Last Dangerous Visions might've been thirty years ago, the ship has sailed. Ellison should have returned the stories to the authors, to do with them as they will. Christopher Priest's The Last Deadloss Visions is a damning indictment of Ellison's behavior to his contributors over the years.

Ellison has released stories intended for inclusion in Last Dangerous Visions when the author (or representatives) have asked for it, and something like one or two dozen of the stories have appeared in other venues. That others haven't may reflect that, say, Octavia Butler or Stephen King or Vonda McIntyre may not be worried that their writing careers are being held back.

Fortunately, I think Ellison's really going to get the book published this time, as he's got David Gerrold and Steven R Boyett helping him out.

i am sorry but i cant but laugh at the idea anyone still believes that harlan is finally getting it published.
there have been actual dates announced in the past.. lots of times.

and oh yeah bulter has been dead for several years.

another of a long list of authors who died before seeing their stories published.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Ellison, for all that he promotes himself as being a champion of writers and the written word, is ironically suing CBS and Pocket Books because David R. George III did something he, himself, could not do -- write a novel. My honest opinion? It's the fact that DRG3 wrote a novel that Ellison himself could not write is the thing that galls him the most. Not the belief that Pocket infringed upon his copyrights and trademarks. But that DRG3 was able to take Ellison's ideas -- and run with them, to the tune of 400,000 words and critical acclaim.

Ellison couldn't have done that.

I think that's what's so galling for Ellison. It's not a matter of right or wrong, legality or infringment. It's a question of pride.

I'm with you 100% on the matter of The Last DV but this last bit isn't pushing things, it's shoving, pummelling, kicking and spitting on them. Far more likely, HE is sick of people using his idea to make money for themselves and produce what he no doubt views as cynical hackwork. I really doubt the man who wrote [insert any number of titles of groundbreaking stories, essays or anthologies here] is seething with envy, Salieri-style, over a media tie-in book.

Ellison made himself clear in his rambling, bitter and hilarious essay introducing his draft of CotEoF: he wants a piece of the action.

 

[trevanian]

Other significant failures? Good question...

What rankles me with Ellison is his insistence upon turning any failure on his part into a sense of victimization and entitlement.

Warners was wise to pass on I, Robot -- it would have been the SFnal equivalent of Ishtar or Heaven's Gate, a financial boondogle to create an SF arthouse picture -- but Ellison portrays Warners' executives in his introduction to the screenplay as shortsighted, venal creatures against whom he had to battle in order to preserve his vision.

Or, his famous story about a pitch for the first Star Trek film where his story excited the Paramount suits -- until a request for Mayans sent him off into a rage.

Or The Starlost.

Or his claim that Spiro Agnew personally kept The Other Glass Teat from being published.

Or his Babylon 5 script.
Ellison's modus operandi is to turn a failure on his part into a personal attack upon him. His famous story about how "You don't fuck with the Mouse" is amusing -- until you realize how completely unprofessional Ellison was, and then you wonder why he's wanting you to laugh at his own stupidity. Yet, Ellison wants you to feel that Disney unjustly fired him for being funny.

snip

I think that's what's so galling for Ellison. It's not a matter of right or wrong, legality or infringment. It's a question of pride.

"Accomplishment is its own reward - pride obscures it." That's from TWIN PEAKS, but I think it could easily have come from Ellison.

It surprises me that you can take so many very different situations and wrap them into your thesis ... kinda reminds me of Pauline Kael's famous (and famously WRONG) essay on Welles and Kane, a kind of LIberty Vallance/Print the Legend that proves you can still tell big lies and get everybody to believe them.

What did HE do wrong with STARLOST? Outside of signing a contract or taking somebody at his word, not much. When he saw how bad it was going, he left, and did what little he could to torpedo it with the pseudonym.

I certainly disagree with your assertion of IROBOT as an art film type script ... just because there is a notion about lman at the core of things, and one that is presented pretty heavy-handed, doesn't mean it is trying to be some kind of pretentious art, merely presenting a second level of sell. And imagining the film as an ISHTAR/HEAVEN'S GATE type failure based on the published draft is ... probably about as stupid as basing an evaluation of Ellison's writing talents on the filmed version of THE OSCAR.

The 'fuck with the mouse' thing is a great example of how he doesn't edit or smooth over or polish his side of things. Most folks would put some spin control on the piece, or shove the blame onto the folks he was eating with for not tipping him off. But no, he owned up to all of it.

How would you have reacted to the mayans thing if you were the writer in the meeting? Just nodded and nodded till you got a deal memo, then wrote what you wanted till they cut you off after the treatment?

The fact Ellison continued to get involved in film/tv projects on occasion (between long periods of not) is probably in part financial ... but I've often thought it was also the notion that 'every moonlight makes me a virgin again' ... that THIS time, it'd be done right, to not hold the past and other idiots as the standard, but to try to get it done right this time ... and of course it doesn't work out.

If Ellison had been allowed to direct NACKLES for CBS, we'd probably have a whole new area to debate his (de)merits.

 

[Orac Zen]

Well there was the Heaven's Gate incident. And yes, they were more than a nutter UFO cult, they were a nutter ST cult too. Someone showing up to jury duty in a ST Uniform. The boy in the 70s that committed suicide cause he couldn't be Vulcan. And as for riots, well that's all relative, as ST fans just hold rallies to save dead TV shows, attempts to raise money for said dead show rather than for people afflicted by one of the worse natural disasters in US history, and talk about kidnapping TV execs and making threats against them for canceling aforementioned show on internet forums.

Harlan is more right about ST fans, than he is wrong.

Of course he is. Because the people / groups you mentioned are, of course, entirely representative of Trek fans in general. All Trek fans called up for jury duty wear uniforms. All Trek fans ran around raising money to save a dead TV show and are indifferent to natural disasters. All Trek fans threatened to harm some TV executive.



He may be right about a small number of Trek fans. To suggest he's correct about any more than a certain percentage of Trek fans is ridiculous hyperbole. The paragraph EEE quoted above suggests he's tarred all Trek fans with the same brush and that, again, is ridiculous hyperbole. Still, there are plenty of Trek fans out there who seem to think they're above the hoi polloi, so it makes a certain sort of sense that they'd regard Ellison's absurd generalisations as some sort of holy writ.

Ellison can sue whoever he likes. Good luck to him. And I suppose he'll continue dismissing all Trek fans as mindless drones worshipping at the altar of Roddenberry (or whoever), and make himself look like a complete prat in the process. Again, good luck to him. The rest of us will get on with our lives regardless.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Or his Babylon 5 script.

What about it? Ellison is JMS best friend and the two have never said anything harmful or hurtful about each other. Ellison, iirc, didn't contribute a script to B5 because of his heart attack and other writing commitments. He did contribute the story, or germ of the story, for "A View from the Gallery."

JMS later said that he was funning with Ellison and us with the "Demon on the Run" script that would've been a sequel of sorts to "Demon with a Glass Hand" with Trent coming to B5. However, JMS had told Cinefantastique that it would be in the first-season of episodes and both Ellison and him discussed the possible script at SDCC the year B5 premired as a series (a year after the pilot had aired). I was at that panel and remember it vividly as it was my first Ellison experience. My second one, despite his public persona and what others percieve of him, was quite plesant and he was quite gracious in thanking me for enjoying his work.


Although, Ellison was going to write another script, "Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral." It was listed in Cinefantastique's list of first-season episodes. The article was written by Mark A. Altman, who wrote the majority of the articles that appeared in the issue covering B5's then-upcoming first season. However, Ellison's heart attack prevented him from doing so. So it got tabled and by the time B5 got arc heavy, JMS was writting all the scripts and there was no room for anymore freelance stories, especially since it was believed that the series might end in year 4. Ellison later used the title for a short story that had no relation to B5 (or perhaps the original idea). The story appeared in his Dark Horse comic book and in an anthology edited by Michael Chabon, Thrilling Tales.

Ellison did, however, remain a consultant through all five years of the series and watched every epsiode after a cut was made. There is a B5 magazine two-part interview with him. Resident B5 expert Jan would know the specific issues, but I don't have them handy as they are in another city from me right now. Some of his contributions to the series ranged from the minute to the large. For example, Ellison noticed that there wasn't a breeze in the Garden scenes of the pilot and then told JMS that if the Garden is going to seem real that there needed to be wind because planets needed it for pollen and such. In the series, this was corrected if not always obvious. A large example is Ellison's contribution of the Shadow Planet Killer so that it wasn't just another big ray gun like the Vorlon's PK. And, of course, the story of "A View from the Gallery," which came about because Ellison said that the problem with the majority of SFTV series is that it's always from the perspecitive of the decision/policy makers and not the guy who's gotta clean the john.

So I don't understand where you got your claim on how his Babylon 5 script is a failure that he's made excuses for.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

So I don't understand where you got your claim on how his Babylon 5 script is a failure that he's made excuses for.

Because he says now that he never had any intention of writing for Babylon 5 and he doesn't understand why JMS would say that he did.

The problem with Ellison's "spin" is that there's ample evidence that at the time Ellison intended to write a sequel to "Demon with a Glass Hand" for Babylon 5. Saying now that it must have been a joke on JMS' part flies in the face of the evidence.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

So I don't understand where you got your claim on how his Babylon 5 script is a failure that he's made excuses for.

Because he says now that he never had any intention of writing for Babylon 5 and he doesn't understand why JMS would say that he did.

The problem with Ellison's "spin" is that there's ample evidence that at the time Ellison intended to write a sequel to "Demon with a Glass Hand" for Babylon 5. Saying now that it must have been a joke on JMS' part flies in the face of the evidence.

Yes, but where did he make such a statement?

 

[Red Ranger]

Originally Posted by Harlan Ellison
“I have no love for Paramount,” said Harlan Ellison, in an interview with Maggie Thompson, printed in Sci-Fi Universe in June 1995. “Paramount is not a studio…steeped in ethical behavior...The fanatics who feed off that whole money-making Trek franchise, who live it and breathe it, who don't merely watch the show, are to me the most pathetic creatures in the world; suckers being mulcted by venal Paramount, publishers of garbage novels with stock characters, hustlers and inheritors of Roddenberry's scam, and cult-like gurus who prey on Star Trek obsessives and Trekkies and Trekkers and Treksters and Trekoids and Treknoids and Trekiloids and Diploids and Dippies. They're like those sad couch potatoes who worship at the TV altars of The 700 Club and Home Shopping Channel, which are one and the same, whether the viewers are being fleeced in the name of Consumerism or Jesus. They are…absolutely the most pathetic creatures in the world. I mean, they talk about a TV series as if it were real life. They wear damned Star Trek uniforms. People change their names so they have the same names as the characters. Doesn't anyone else see the resemblance this all bears to the Branch Davidians or the Jonestown cults?”

Wow. Talk about hyperbole. If Trekkies made their followers drink poisoned Kool-Aid or had a violent stand-off with the FBI, then maybe his last statement would have a shred of merit. All I know is, SF fans don't have riots like sports fans, or even religious fanatics. -- RR

Well there was the Heaven's Gate incident. And yes, they were more than a nutter UFO cult, they were a nutter ST cult too. Someone showing up to jury duty in a ST Uniform. The boy in the 70s that committed suicide cause he couldn't be Vulcan. And as for riots, well that's all relative, as ST fans just hold rallies to save dead TV shows, attempts to raise money for said dead show rather than for people afflicted by one of the worse natural disasters in US history, and talk about kidnapping TV execs and making threats against them for canceling aforementioned show on internet forums.

Harlan is more right about ST fans, than he is wrong.

Can't agree with you. And just because those Heaven's Gate whackjobs had a ST fetish, the correlation between them and the average SF fan, let alone ST fan, does not imply causation.

As for the kidnapping threats, did they go through with them? I think not. On the other hand, contrast that to football fans tearing up the streets because their hometown team won! What happens when they lose? Yikes.

There's a hell of a lot more incidents and documentation of such incidents on the part of so-called "normal people," than the SF "freaks."

Harlan Ellison is still a misanthrope.

Red Ranger

 

[Brutal Strudel]

The problem with these threads is that it leads both camps to Ellisonian flights of hyperbole. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that HE can be a major talent and an asshole, simultaneously entitled to compensation and a world-calss dick?

As far as being a misanthrope is concerned, I consider myself to be one so I don't see how it even qualifies as an insult.

 

[Red Ranger]

The problem with these threads is that it leads both camps to Ellisonian flights of hyperbole. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that HE can be a major talent and an asshole, simultaneously entitled to compensation and a world-calss dick?

As far as being a misanthrope is concerned, I consider myself to be one so I don't see how it even qualifies as an insult.

Well, hello, misanthrope! Nice to meet you, you sorry bastard! (Kidding!)

I can be a misanthrope, too. The difference is, I think you and I are lovable misanthropes -- your IDing me as a steatopygia-phile, for example certainly qualifies.

Yes, Ellison can be both. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be called out on being a brilliant asshole!

Red Ranger

 

[Mordock]

The problem with these threads is that it leads both camps to Ellisonian flights of hyperbole. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that HE can be a major talent and an asshole, simultaneously entitled to compensation and a world-class dick?

Well put, sir. I was just about to bring that up myself. I understand that Ellison's a polarizing figure; my own feelings about him are complicated. Still, why do people feel compelled to make threads about him into arguments about his virtues or lack thereof?

If Ira Behr were to sue Pocket Books because he believed he had certain contractual arrangements regarding of the use of Ezri Dax and that they weren't being carried out, it would probably just result in an interesting discussion of the gray areas of IP law as regards Trek characters, and not segue into a heated debate about the value of all the DS9 episodes he wrote.

 

[Red Ranger]

The problem with these threads is that it leads both camps to Ellisonian flights of hyperbole. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that HE can be a major talent and an asshole, simultaneously entitled to compensation and a world-class dick?

Well put, sir. I was just about to bring that up myself. I understand that Ellison's a polarizing figure; my own feelings about him are complicated. Still, why do people feel compelled to make threads about him into arguments about his virtues or lack thereof?

If Ira Behr were to sue Pocket Books because he believed he had certain contractual arrangements regarding of the use of Ezri Dax and that they weren't being carried out, it would probably just result in an interesting discussion of the gray areas of IP law as regards Trek characters, and not segue into a heated debate about the value of all the DS9 episodes he wrote.

Ah, what an optimist you are! Believe me, considering the nature of the denizens of this BBS, maybe a thread about Ira Behr engaged in such a lawsuit might start out as you suggest, but then it would quickly devolve into a pissing match over whether Behr is a dick or not! -- RR

 

[nx1701g]

Well put, sir. I was just about to bring that up myself. I understand that Ellison's a polarizing figure; my own feelings about him are complicated. Still, why do people feel compelled to make threads about him into arguments about his virtues or lack thereof?

Believe me that wasn't my intention.

 

[Saul]

Originally Posted by Harlan Ellison
“I have no love for Paramount,” said Harlan Ellison, in an interview with Maggie Thompson, printed in Sci-Fi Universe in June 1995. “Paramount is not a studio…steeped in ethical behavior...The fanatics who feed off that whole money-making Trek franchise, who live it and breathe it, who don't merely watch the show, are to me the most pathetic creatures in the world; suckers being mulcted by venal Paramount, publishers of garbage novels with stock characters, hustlers and inheritors of Roddenberry's scam, and cult-like gurus who prey on Star Trek obsessives and Trekkies and Trekkers and Treksters and Trekoids and Treknoids and Trekiloids and Diploids and Dippies. They're like those sad couch potatoes who worship at the TV altars of The 700 Club and Home Shopping Channel, which are one and the same, whether the viewers are being fleeced in the name of Consumerism or Jesus. They are…absolutely the most pathetic creatures in the world. I mean, they talk about a TV series as if it were real life. They wear damned Star Trek uniforms. People change their names so they have the same names as the characters. Doesn't anyone else see the resemblance this all bears to the Branch Davidians or the Jonestown cults?”

Wow. Talk about hyperbole. If Trekkies made their followers drink poisoned Kool-Aid or had a violent stand-off with the FBI, then maybe his last statement would have a shred of merit. All I know is, SF fans don't have riots like sports fans, or even religious fanatics. -- RR

Well there was the Heaven's Gate incident. And yes, they were more than a nutter UFO cult, they were a nutter ST cult too. Someone showing up to jury duty in a ST Uniform. The boy in the 70s that committed suicide cause he couldn't be Vulcan. And as for riots, well that's all relative, as ST fans just hold rallies to save dead TV shows, attempts to raise money for said dead show rather than for people afflicted by one of the worse natural disasters in US history, and talk about kidnapping TV execs and making threats against them for canceling aforementioned show on internet forums.

Harlan is more right about ST fans, than he is wrong.

Can't agree with you. And just because those Heaven's Gate whackjobs had a ST fetish, the correlation between them and the average SF fan, let alone ST fan, does not imply causation.

As for the kidnapping threats, did they go through with them? I think not. On the other hand, contrast that to football fans tearing up the streets because their hometown team won! What happens when they lose? Yikes.

There's a hell of a lot more incidents and documentation of such incidents on the part of so-called "normal people," than the SF "freaks."

Yeah anything that is considered to be a Social outcast is blamed while the far more serious organisations that promote objects and persons that can kill people rest easy.

We see people who have been shot and blown to bits on the news each day but when news breaks that a kid shot somebody the first question isn't "where did he get the gun?" it's "what was the last movie he watched or thing he did before the shooting, did he watch the Matrix?".

A case here in Tokyo back at the start of the Summer had a guy driving over people on a pedestrian street, he then proceeded to get out and start stabbing anyone at random.
The first thing the media blamed was "Otakus" because they found some drawings he did of animation characters and his personal writings about himself. They put less emphasis on the fact that he posted on internet message boards that he was planning to kill people and when he was going to do it. They also thought the fact that he was acting like a maniac over his stolen coat at work a few days earlier was less important than him been an anime fan, or the fact that his neighbours knew how he used to beat his own mother. But of course, lets look at the real problem with this guy that the meida portays...he watched and drew some animation character so that makes him a crazy anime fan that made him kill others. No blame to the people at his work, the people who read his warning messages on the net or his neighbours who never reported him to the police for beating his mother.
They even tried to ban knife weapon sales in the area where the stabbing and killings took place. Why? Because it's an area popular with people who like animation, however he never bought the knives there and a few weeks later there was another stabbing incident in a different area, this time by a person who used only kitchen knives. This guy had problems long ago, but nobody did shit about it. Even after it happened people kept their ignorance to the real causes and that's why it happened and will happen again.

Comparing Trek fans to cultists is the kind of extreme bullshit that is laid on fans of any type of popular Sci-fi, animation media etc. The people who usually do it are out of touch with society and what the real sources of the problems in todays world are.

 

[Mordock]

Well put, sir. I was just about to bring that up myself. I understand that Ellison's a polarizing figure; my own feelings about him are complicated. Still, why do people feel compelled to make threads about him into arguments about his virtues or lack thereof?

Believe me that wasn't my intention.

Exactly! A strange common instinct takes over. It happens on other boards as well. Ellison gives his opinion on something, someone ripostes with "Is there anything that guy's not pissed off about?" and before you know it, the topic becomes old grudges and convention stories and books that never came out, and it's bench-clearing brawls, brother against brother and people setting fire to cars...