Improbably, Harlan Ellison's THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS might actually be coming out

[Werthead]

In a series of tweets, SF TV author and executor of the Harlan Ellison Estate, J. Michael Straczynski, has hinted that the much-delayed (by 48 years) The Last Dangerous Visions anthology may be coming out, or at least something is happening with it.

JMS is releasing the news one word a day for five days, with the sentence currently reading THE LAST DANGEROUS... which I think is a pretty big clue.

We know that at least one version of The Last Dangerous Visions was completed in 1979, organised into three volumes with 109 stories from 102 authors present (32 stories have since appeared elsewhere; it's unclear if they would be included in a LDV collection or not), before Ellison seemed to balk and refused to release it. That leaves 77 stories from some relatively well-known names in SFF that have never appeared, in some cases where the author has since also passed away.

We should find out for sure what's going on on Friday.

 

[MikeAnderson]

At this point, I'm more convinced Harlan will come back from the dead and thank your mother for the chicken soup (I always loved that catchphrase from him!) than before this compilation come out. Still, one can hope...

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have been waiting for this collection since the early 1970's. I hope this happens.

 

[BAYLOR]

I will believe it when I see it.

 

[Danny McG]

I have been waiting for this collection since the early 1970's. I hope this happens.

Ditto

 

[Werthead]

Confirmed. It'll be out in under a year (depending on the publisher).

The book has also been changed. With the removal of 30-odd stories from the original list (the authors withdrew them to publish elsewhere), there's now space for stories by modern authors, a mixture of "big-hitters" and young up-and-comers. Straczynski has also reserved a spot for a debut story by a brand new author, to be chosen by submission.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

More information here, and some comments suggesting that some people don't approve of this version of the book, and others suggesting this will be yet another broken promise. We'll see.

Last Dangerous Visions Will Be Submitted to Publishers in 2021

J. Michael Straczynski dropped the fifth of his attention-grabbing “data packets” this afternoon with the biggest payload of all: The Last Dangerous Visions, was announced in 1973 and scheduled to …

file770.com

 

[Werthead]

I suspect this was always in Ellison's mind, that publishing an anthology of stories that were decades out of date was simply uninteresting to him and that's why, after a certain point, he felt the book-as-was couldn't be released and in his older years he didn't want to face the immense task of reorganising the book with new stories and keeping it up-to-date.

Straczynski is one of the very, very few people Ellison trusted (there's a reason he was his choice as executor after Susan) and it seems inconceivable they did not discuss the project over the years and ideas for its transformation. Ellison just wasn't capable of doing it himself.

 

[Ambrose]

A Simak story that would have been in the collection was published some years ago,

 

[Bick]

There should be a George R. R. Martin SF story in it. I know he was asked to submit and did so...

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

A very detailed account of stories that were supposed to appear in the anthology as of 1979, along with information about which stories were withdrawn and/or published elsewhere:

The Last Dangerous Visions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bick]

Thanks Victoria, very interesting. No Martin story listed though, so I checked the story - apparently Harlan asked Martin to submit something but didn’t accept what he submitted!

 

[Toby Frost]

Has anyone told Christopher Priest?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Has anyone told Christopher Priest?

Yes!

Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions may finally be published, after five-decade wait

Sci-fi anthology stalled since 1974 will be produced by executor, screenwriter J Michael Straczynski, adding stories by today’s big-name SF writers

www.theguardian.com

Contacted by the Guardian on Monday, Priest was unimpressed, saying that Straczynski was “in the same sort of unenviable position as Trump’s caddie”.

“I kind of lost interest in all that years ago. Ellison clearly did too, along with everyone else. (Although I gather he went on with his magical thinking if anyone asked when he was going to deliver),” he wrote. “Many of the stories were withdrawn, because Ellison acted like a ****. Of the ones that remain, most of them are by writers who are now deceased, so the rights have expired and the estates would have to be traced. A lot of the writers have disowned their stories as juvenilia, or outdated, or simply because Ellison was acting like a ***.”

But, Priest added: “Mr Straczynski is an experienced professional, so maybe he’ll work something out.”

I have censored mild profanity.

 

[Toby Frost]

Priest once gave a talk at my local writing group. He was good and very interesting, but I got the strong impression that he was the kind of person who'd tell you that they didn't suffer fools gladly.

 

[BAYLOR]

Priest once gave a talk at my local writing group. He was good and very interesting, but I got the strong impression that he was the kind of person who'd tell you that they didn't suffer fools gladly.

Some fans can be not pleasant to deal with. I can understand that sentiment.

 

[Toby Frost]

He did have an impressive spat with Martin Amis, who reviewed one of Priest's early novels pretty harshly.

 

[AE35Unit]

I have an edition from this series, got it from bookmooch, signed.

 

[williamjm]

Thanks Victoria, very interesting. No Martin story listed though, so I checked the story - apparently Harlan asked Martin to submit something but didn’t accept what he submitted!

Was that Meathouse Man? I seem to remember GRRM telling a story about him submitting an early version of that to Ellison and being told that he needed to rewrite to fully explore the implications of the story.

 

[Bick]

Was that Meathouse Man? I seem to remember GRRM telling a story about him submitting an early version of that to Ellison and being told that he needed to rewrite to fully explore the implications of the story.

Yes, that's the one - and it turns out it was ultimately published by Damon Knight in Orbit 18 (1976). Ellison rejected it twice for LDV, but it was selected by Terry Carr for his Year's Best anthology that year (which also included an Ellison story, funnily enough).