On a hilly street in Sherman Oaks, writer and producer J. Michael “Joe” Straczynski gestures to a row of gray gargoylesque heads mounted above an entryway. “If you look carefully, you’ll see they are the Watergate figures,” he says.
“Nixon in the middle, surrounded by Mitchell, Dean, Haldeman, all of them.” He smiles, knowing that the mind that created this funky tableau belonged to none other than his closest friend, the eccentric author of speculative fiction, Harlan Ellison. Ellison’s career spanned six decades.
His work garnered multiple Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards, among other honors. Willing to approach subjects that others deemed taboo or too complicated, he influenced a generation of writers, including George R. R.
Martin, Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. This year will see the publication of four newly revised Ellison books, beginning with the March release of “Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits,” which has now gone through four print runs, to the anthologies “Dangerous Visions” (March), “Again, Dangerous Visions” (released today) and the long-awaited “The Last Dangerous Visions” in October. Straczynski’s introduction to the new edition of “Dangerous Visions” includes something of a call to action: “‘Dangerous Visions’ .
.. was needed.
And it may be just as needed now, at this moment, which has seen the return of a new generation of censors, banners and burners. Because the war for free expression is never truly won, only.
