I take that back, it won the Hugo in 1976. I used to own the VHS. Yeah it did lack a certain amount of taste. The first time I saw it was when they showed it at World Con. It was okay. It'll never go down (if you'll forgive the expression) as one of my favorite films though.

Hey, Blood is my hero. I wish they had also made either films or perhaps even shorts of the other two episodes Ellison actually wrote. In the third episode, Vic dies, leaving Blood alone. Not sure whether that was to be the end of the novel or not, though, since the supposed title was BLOOD'S A ROVER and Blood was still alive. It is a very bitter film,but then, Ellison's stories are always bitter. Do you recall DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND from the old series "Outer Limits"? That was also Ellison.

Of course. That was one of the classic episodes that's always written about or talked about when it comes to that show. "Djin No Chaser" wasn't that bitter.

Another brilliant bit from Ellison. Are you also familiar with the show BABYLON 5? Ellison was a "technical contributer" to that show.

nO NEVER WATCHED IT IN ANY OF ITS INCARNATIONS.

Only the original show was any good, and it was great. Again, the Ellison touch

You mean the one with Lorne Greene?

No, that's Battlestar Gallactica. Babylon 5 was Bruce Boxleitner. A gritty, bitter show but so well done.

Of course. Sorry my brain went out there for a second. I DO know the difference, honestly I do.

I believe you. Babylon 5 had the best first 4 seasons of any TV series I have ever seen. However, the 5th season was thrown together after the network decided to renew at the very last minute. It did not live up to the first 4.

I was just remembering this little 10 or 15 minute show that Harlan used to have on the SciFi channel. He'd spend a lot of time ragging on other authors etc. One person he used to pick on in particular was a filk singer who finally got a few of her books published. They were typical fantasy things filled with unicorns and stuff and boy did Harlan hate that! He attached not only her books and and her as a writer, but he couldn't resist catty little personal comments either. Then one day he came on his show and talked about how there had been some sort of disaster at his house. I forget what it was--flood, fire, tornado, anyhow a lot of damage had been done and the first person there to help was this woman he had been ragging on and she brought a lot of her friends and they helped him get everything back in order. You wouldn't have believed it if you had seen it! Harlan was practically penitent! Apologizing for all the terrible things he had said about her personally and going on and on. I wonder how long after that he remained a changed man?

I actually met him once when he came to Yellow Springs for a master course in writing with Rod Serling. He was cocky and agressive, but he was actually pretty nice to those of us in the class. He simply says what he thinks, and then sometimes regrets it later. He has apologized lots of times but you know he will do it again with someone else. He was so abused, not by his parents but by other kids, first for being subsized, adn then for being the only Jewish family in Painesville, Ohio. A double whammy that he never really outgrew.

Spielberg tells almost the same story. His was the only Jewish family in Arizona or New Mexico but at least he was a couple of inches taller than Harlan. My son in law is Chinese from Indonesia although he doesn't even remember the 1 year he spent in Australia muc less Indonesia--he's the all American boy, my daughter had to teach him how to eat with chopsticks. On a good day in shoes with lots of hair gel Rob still doesn't make 5'3". He only got in one fight in his whole life when some guys gave him grief at a stop light and he just launched out of the car and went after them. But he's always been such a great guy that nobody ever picked on him.

Ellison, I think, was probably a smart ass and made his own enemies. You can tell that he is very intelligent and his work shows that he is very creative, but he has also had 5 wives (at last count) and several other shorter term relationships, so he does have some serious personal relationship difficulties. Fellow writers always defend him, but even the writers he worked with in PARTNERS IN WONDER only agreed to write with him if they did it long distance. He is just to demanding of everyone, including himself.

I think he's always been the kind of person who dares people to like him and that's what's caused all the conflict in his life--and probably a lot of those fights in school too. Rob on the other hand is almost impossible not to like and the result is nobody ever beat him up. Alex looks just like Rob did as a kid--a tiny little person with a huge head. Fortunately everybody seems to love him too because he's never going to make it anywhere near average height which is always rough for guys.

I'm only 5'6" myself. I was lucky, though. I made friends from every social group in high school, so I had someone to defend me most of the time. I only had one fight, in 6th grade, and he beat the crap out of me rather quickly. Yeah, Ellison was hard to like, but easy to respect. That's a hard way to be in high school.

I don't imagine that he got a lot of respect in high school. There you only get respect if you play football or basketball. My daughter hopes that Alex will make 5'5" but I think he's going to be Rob's height. His twin may well make it to 5'7" though! Considering neither of his parents is over 5'3" that's pretty good.

I got some respect because I played in musical groups in high school, and I was active in drama. It surprised me that even the "hoods" seemed to be okay with me because of the music and drama. Respect, though? Yeah, only the jocks

Music'll work unless you're a "band geek" (marching band only from what I can deduce) and theater usually goes over pretty well. But its always the jocks at the top of the food chain. I was in an experimental calss when I started junior high--it was the first gifted program in the state and the idea was to really push us and see what we could do. Talk about the BOTTOM of the food chain!

Yeah, I can imagine. I played piano and bass in a doo wop rock band that was really fairly popular in the city. That is probably what saved me most