J. Michael Straczynski has posted a new update to his Patreon site for those followers who signed up to learn more about his efforts to bring The Last Dangerous Visions anthology to publication.
Don’t know what rock you’ve been under if you aren’t familiar with this but, a brief recap in case you have been under said rock: Harlan Ellison, man of letters, “enfant terrible” of both the SF field and Hollywood, author of Star Trek’s most storied episode – The City on the Edge of Forever – and editor of one of the most ground-breaking anthologies in the SF field’s history – Dangerous Visions – produced a sequel anthology (Again, Dangerous Visions) and then announced a third, to be titled The Last Dangerous Visions, which became an albatross around Ellison’s neck as he failed to bring that book out, and refused to surrender the rights to stories that had been submitted. LDV as it was called came to become something that you never mentioned to Harlan (or did so from a safe distance as I did, said distance being approximately 2,500 miles) and the subject of much commentary, including a book The Last Deadloss Visions by Christopher Priest (who managed to get his story back, as did several others over the course of years).
Harlan left us without ever concluding that project and there was much speculation as to the fate of the stories in his files. J. Michael Straczynski, long time friend and co-worker with Ellison (Babylon 5 as one project) has taken on the role of literary executor for the Harlan and Susan Ellison estate and recently announced that he intends to publish The Last Dangerous Visions; the plan is to keep existing stories that are appropriate (haven’t aged too much) and to seek out new rights agreements with those authors; to return rights on those that will not be used and to solicit new stories.
JMS is releasing information on this project through his Patreon account (membership required).
In his second update, it was announced that a major author in the field has agreed to submit a story.
In this most recent update, an existing manuscript that will be included, is announced and the first page of the ms is displayed, including Harlan’s editorial markings.
But to see it and find out who wrote it and what Harlan edited, you’ll need to sign on with the Patreon account, which you can do here.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
Recent Comments