Introduction
This article is about a book, specifically an anthology, which has an almost legendary status among those who read speculative fiction or science fiction. It has been talked about for half-a-century yet was only published very recently and involved one of the most colorful and controversial figures in SF, Harlan Ellison. To explain this, I’ll set out some background first. If you are a science fiction fan of long standing, you probably know a lot of this but have a read just in case!
Some Background
Harlan Ellison was known for his prolific and influential work in the so-called ‘New Wave’ of speculative fiction, a movement which sought to bring better writing and more innovative concepts to science fiction. He was known for his outspoken, combative personality and the many lawsuits he took against those he felt had wronged him. His published works include hundreds of stories, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film and television.
He was born in 1934 in Cleveland, Ohio, and published his first story in 1949. He had a turbulent family life, leaving home at the age of 18, and worked various jobs during his youth and twenties. During this period, Ellison was an active member of science fiction fandom and published his own science fiction fanzines. He moved to New York in 1955 and sold hundreds of short stories over the next two years. He served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959 and published his first novel, ‘Web of the City’, during his basic training.
He moved to California in 1962 and sold scripts to many television shows, including ‘The Outer Limits’, ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’, ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’ and most notably the original series of ‘Star Trek’. Ellison’s screenplay for ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’ is widely regarded as the best episode of that series, though the evolution of Ellison’s script, the final version of the episode and the conflict between Ellison and Gene Roddenberry is a story unto itself. Around this time, he published some of his most significant stories such as ‘ “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman’, ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’ and ‘A Boy and His Dog’, the later being made into a film.
In 1967 Ellison drew together an anthology of SF stories called “Dangerous Visions.” The stories were handpicked and edited by him, each with an often lengthy introduction written by him and with an afterword, often much shorter, by the author. As the title suggests, the purpose of the anthology was to showcase newer SF that was more experimental, more influenced by the arts of the time and generally more controversial. The contributors ranged from those new to the field or new to writing itself, some established SF greats ‘trying new things’ and writers who were known experimental writers. It marked a significant high point of the ‘New Wave’ movement mentioned above and had an enormous impact on the North American version of this change in direction for SF. It was an enormous critical and commercial success, with many of its stories winning Hugo and Nebula awards.
Ellison followed this up in 1972 with a second, larger, anthology, ‘Again, Dangerous Visions’, which had a similar impact, possibly more so. This anthology had been delayed from its original publishing date. By 1971, Ellison was already apologizing to contributors to A,DV for the delays but reassuring them that A,DV would be out in early 1972 and that a third anthology, ‘The Last Dangerous Visions’ (LDV) would be out later that same year. He also told his LDV authors if they were upset by the delays they could publish their stories somewhere else, but that he hoped they’d stick with him. The third anthology was also mentioned in some of the essays, forewords and other pieces in the A,DV anthology.
Ellison’s intention to publish this third anthology was announced to a wider public in 1973, in Issue #7 of the semi-prozine (semi-professional magazine) ‘Alien Critic’, along with a list of the stories to be included. The most complete version was announced in 1979; listed were 113 stories by 102 authors, to be collected in three volumes. Stories were added, dropped or substituted between each announced version. The list of stories from 1979 was the last one published by Ellison.
Now the peculiar nature of this anthology becomes apparent; ‘Again, Dangerous Visions’ came out within five years of ‘Dangerous visions’ and already in 1979 we are at the five year mark again with nothing going to a printing press. Throughout the eighties and nineties, Ellison repeatedly claimed to be working on the anthology, including accepting new stories, but it did not appear. Many of the authors who had submitted stories for the collection withdrew their work, backed out of the project and published their stories elsewhere over the following decades. This was very understandable; aside from the simple fact of wanting to be paid for work done, many of the stories were to be experimental or cutting edge and the nature of what that means will change over time. But many other stories remained in limbo, unpublished. Harlan Ellison died in 2018, 45 years after announcing that the ‘Last Dangerous Visions’ was imminent. He stated in his will that any of his unpublished works were to be destroyed; the science fiction world assumed they would never see the Last of these Dangerous Visions.
It came as a great surprise therefore when personal friend and executor of Ellison’s works J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the SF series ‘Babylon 5’, announced his intention to finish and publish LDV. The collection was finally published in 2024, as one volume rather than three. In addition to the stories remaining from 1979 there were some newer stories. This is understandable as the market for unreleased 45-year-old science fiction stories is definitely niche!
But ever since JMS announced LDV was finally seeing the light of day, I was very interested to see which stories would be included, which would not and especially what became of the ‘orphans’. In practical terms, the rights to any of the stories not included by JMS revert to the authors/estates. For 45 years all fans (we are both fans, if you have not guessed by now!) have had is the list of titles and authors and endless speculation, fueled by our imaginations. In a way this is appropriate for SF, the literature of the imagination.
I decided to take a look at the list of unpublished stories and contact the authors, or their estates in the case of this who have died, to ask them if these stories have been or will ever be shared with the world. I have followed the original structure of the three ‘books’ as set out by Ellison in the following discussion and I have highlighted the titles of the stories where I had a reply from them or their estate. Sadly not all my inquiries were successful, but I have shared as much information about the authors as I could in the hopes that maybe down the line we will hear more about these unpublished stories. Short biographies of the writers have been included; many of these will be known to you, some may be less well known and sadly there are a few for which almost no information is available.
Book One
“Living Inside” by Bruce Sterling (2250)
Sterling replied with:
“In a word, No.”
I think this is because it is one of his earliest stories and Sterling does not feel it is reflective of his later work. He is a giant in modern SF and a one of the leading lights of the so-called Cyberpunk movement; he could be regarded as one of its founders. Born in 1954, he sold his first SF story, ‘Man-Made Self’ in 1976. His most prominent work is probably ‘Shismatrix’ and its companion pieces taking place in the ‘Shaper/Mechanist’ universe. He has also written essays on the subjects raised in Cyberpunk, notably the concept of technological singularity.
‘The Bing Bang Blues’ by Delbert Casada (2000) – No reply from this author. This was apparently Casada’s only story and it was never publishedty.
“Ponce De Leon’s Pants” by Mack Reynolds† (1800) – No reply. Dallas McCord “Mack” Reynolds was born in 1917 and was quite prolific from the fifties to the seventies. His family were heavily involved in socialist and marxist politics in the US and he followed suit; at one point he was an organizer for the US Socialist Labor Party (SLP) and their presidential candidate in 1940. Ironically he was one of the most prolific contributors to John W. Campbells ‘Astounding’ magazine from the late fifties on. He travelled widely during this time, often working as a journalist. Reynolds was the first author to write an original novel based upon the original 1966–1969 ‘Star Trek’, with ‘Mission to Horatius’ (1968). It is widely regarded as young adult fiction, but is one of his bestselling books.
“The True Believer” by A. Bertram Chandler† (7000) – No reply. Chandler was born in Hampshire in England in 1912 and emigrated to Australia in 1956. He sold his first story in 1958. He spent much of his working life in the British and then Australian Merchant navies, experience which pervades his work. He is possibly best known for his Rim Worlds series of books. He died in 1984 in Sydney.
“Doug, Where Are We? I Don’t Know. A Spaceship Maybe” by Grant Carrington (3800)
Carrington has published since his interaction with Ellison, a novel and many short stories, the most recent one published in 2024. This story is still listed as unpublished. Grant told me:
“Thank you for your interest but, there were two good reasons for not publishing it: (1) a lot of new writers had come along since it was written in 1969 who are much more well-known than I am; (2) there are a number of references in it that are no longer politically correct (and, after 50 years, I agree with them) and it borders on the pornographic by any standards I am aware of.”
He let me read the story, under its new shorter title “A Spaceship Maybe.” At the start of the story, the main character Doug commits suicide by jumping off a bridge but, instead of dying, he finds himself in a cell with a woman named Judy, both naked. There are bare walls and no furniture, but the floor is comfortable like a mattress. In their isolation and fear the two of them find comfort in getting to know each other as well as in sexual activity. They realize they never have to eat or use the bathroom. At one point, the walls disappear and they see a sky of distant galaxies. They recognize one of them as our own Milky Way, distant and receding. The story seems to be about loneliness; both characters were in the act of taking their own lives when they were abducted and yet they are no longer suicidal, leaving all their troubles behind with the Earth. At first neither of them can stand the other, but they soon become inseparable. I’m not sure why they are there, is it an experiment? Is s whoever put them there studying humans? Or are they both dead and in some kind of afterlife? And where are they going?
“Child of Mind” by Lisa Tuttle (6800)
Lisa Tuttle replied:
“I haven’t decided if or when or where I might publish it – it was a very early story, written when I was 19. And I adapted the basic idea of it in a novel I wrote called Gabriel – so it’s always felt a bit wrong to publish it out of context in a magazine or anthology after so long. But maybe sometime in a collection of my own work. Who knows. Thanks for asking. Best wishes, Lisa.”
Tuttle was born in Texas in 1952 and published her first story in 1972, after attending the Clarion writers workshop in New Orleans in 1971. She went on to be nominated for and win many genre awards, especially for her short stories and Novellas. In 1982 she was nominated for the Nebula short story award for ‘The Bone Flute’ but withdrew her story from consideration. The award committee declared her the winner and ignored her request. She moved in 1981 to London and soon after married Christopher Priest. She now lives in rural Scotland.
“The 100 Million Horses of Planet Dada” by Daniel Walther† (both French and English versions) (4200). This story was published in January 2008 in its original French as ‘Les Mille millions de chevaux de la planète Dada’ (note the order of magnitude difference in the number of horses!). The English version has never been published. Walther is a French author and journalist, from the town of Munster in the Haut-Rhin department, part of the historic Alsace region of eastern France. In keeping with this heritage, he was the editor of “Science-fiction allemande: Étrangers à Utopolis”, which introduced francophone readers to German science fiction. He has thirteen novels published and a very large number of short stories. He died after a long illness in 2018. According to French Wikipedia he remains largely unknown to the francophone public, despite winning several awards.
“A Time for Praying” by G. C. Edmondson† (7700) – No reply. G. C. Edmondson was the pen name of Garry Edmonson (full name José Mario Garry Ordoñez Edmondson y Cotton), who was born in 1922 in Washington state. He served as a Marine during the Second World War. He wrote Westerns under several pseudonyms but is regarded as a science fiction writer, with several genre novels and short stories to his credit. His career began during 1955 with a story in ‘Astounding’. He later produced several novels focused on time travel and Latin America. Gardner Dozois, amongst others, has described him as neglected. He died in 1995.
“The Amazonas Link” by James Sutherland (6000) – No reply. Sutherland was born in 1948 in Connecticut (there are two other writers with the same name on the ISFDB, one Scottish, one English) and published one novel and three short stories, one of which was written with Ed Bryant. He attended the second Clarion writers workshop in 1969.
“All Creatures Great and Small” by Howard Fast† (1200) – No reply. This is indeed the well-known novelist and film-writer who wrote the eponymous novel the film ‘Spartacus’ is based on. Fast had joined the US Communist party in 1943 and was called in front of the infamous HCUA in 1950. He refused to name the contributors to a home for orphans of American veterans of the Spanish Civil War and so was given a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in Prison he wrote ‘Spartacus’, however he was blacklisted and could not get it published. He published it himself, to great success, and this experience led him to establish the Blue Heron Press. In 1952, he ran for the US Congress for the American Labor Party. He was a prolific writer but most of his work was outside the genre. He died in 2003.
“A Night at Madame Mephisto’s” by Joseph F. Pumilia (1200)
Pumilia is from Texas, US, and went on to write a number of short stories, the last in 1993. He said of his unreleased tale:
“Of my own story I will say it is trivial and mildly humorous, and I am guessing Harlan wanted it as leaven between the heavy and sometimes sextreme sexual tales in 2nd DV…It is correct that it has never been publish and I have no plans to publish at this time. Unless somebody pays me a lot of money.”
“A Day in the Life of A-420” by Felix C. Gotschalk†, writing as Jacques Goudchaux. (2600) – No reply. Gotschalk was born in 1929 in Virginia in the US and worked for much of his life as a psychologist. He first published a short story in 1973 and from there published many shorts in Damon Knight’s Orbit series and Robert Silverberg’s New Dimensions. He flourished in the 1970s and because of his themes of social and sexual taboos (perhaps influenced by his work), he was regarded as a New Wave writer. During the eighties, his stories appeared with some regularity in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. They remain uncollected. His last story was in 1988 and he died in 2002.
“The Residents of Kingston” by Doris Piserchia† (5000) – No reply. Piserchia often wrote under the name Curt Selby. She wrote many short stories in the relatively short period 1966 to 1983, but then stopped writing. She served in the US Navy during the early fifties after which she studied as an educational psychologist. Her work has been characterized as being strongly interested in depictions or analyses of aliens, while being a New Wave writer. She has been regarded as a feminist writer by some. She stopped writing in 1983 after her daughter died. Doris died in 2021.
“Son of ‘Wild in the Streets'” by Robert Thom† (15800)
Born in 1912, Thom is probably best known for the screenplay for the 1975 film ‘Death Race 2000’ as well as the dystopian farce ‘Wild in the Streets’ published in 1968. He died in 1979. Andrew Hutcheson, the husband of Robert Thom’s daughter Hedy Thom, told me the following in a phone conversation:
“A remake of the movie “Wild in the Streets” is being quietly pursued and perhaps this story would be paired with that somehow… Not many people even know about this story (Son of ‘Wild in the Streets’) or have seen it.”
“Dick and Jane Go to Mars” by Wilson Tucker† (7500) – No reply. Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker was born in 1914 in Illinois, selling his first story in 1934 and having a prolific career as an author of SF under the name Wilson Tucker. He also wrote mystery and action adventure works. He was a prominent member of science fiction fandom from the thirties on, writing extensively for SF magazines under the name Bob Tucker. He became a prominent analyst and critic of the field, as well as the coiner of such terms as “space opera”. Wikipedia states that he was fan guest of honor, professional guest of honour, toastmaster or master of ceremonies at so many science fiction conventions over nearly seven decades that no one has managed to compile a comprehensive list. His most notable SF novel was ‘The Year of the Quiet Sun’, from 1970, which won the Hugo Award in 1971 and was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1970. He had a habit of using the names of friends for minor characters in his fiction, now referred to as tuckerization or a tuckerism. He died in 2006.
“On the Way to the Woman of Your Dreams” by Raul Judson (3800) – No reply. This was apparently Judson’s only story and it was never published.
“Blackstop” by Gerard Conway (5500) – No reply. Famous for his towering presence in the Marvel Universe and the co-creator of the ‘Punisher,’ Conway is also the writer of the legendary comic “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” Aside from his work in comics, he also wrote several novels and short stories. He was born in 1952 and was well established in the comic field by the early seventies.
“Return to Elf Hill” by Robert Lilly (900) – No reply. This was apparently Lilly’s only story and it was never published.
Book Two
“The Children of Bull Weed” by Gordon Eklund (17000) – Some sources title this story as ‘The Children of Bull Wood’. Eklund was born in 1945 in Seattle, Washington and sold his first story in 1970. His work includes the ‘Lord Tedric’ series as well as two of the earliest Star Trek novels, one of which, ‘The Starless world’, was the first Star Trek story to include the concept of a Dyson Sphere. He wrote several novels, with two notable collaborations with Gregory Benford and one with Poul Anderson, and many short stories from the seventies through to the nineties. Eklund was a full-time postman for several decades. Eklund said:
“My Last Dangerous Visions story–a long one, maybe the longest of all those intended for the original book(s)–has never been published. As a matter of fact I didn’t even have a copy of the story for many years until J. Michael returned it to me with a note saying that while he liked a story a lot there just wasn’t room for it in the new abridged edition. I’ve gone over the story since, making a few minor revisions along the way, finding to my surprise that the story was even somewhat longer than my original estimate. I still like it myself too and maybe sometime in the future I’ll be able to find a good home after all these years.”
“Grandma, What’s the Sky Made Of?” by Susan C. Lette (1500) – No reply. Lette had a short story ‘Timmy’ published in 1974 in ‘Weird Tales’ and published nothing else.
“A Rousing Explanation of the Events Surrounding My Sister’s Death” by David Wise† (1800) – No reply. Wise had three short stories published in the mid-seventies, but nothing after 1975.
“The Dawn Patrol” by P.J. Plauger (10000) – No reply. Plauger is well known to devotees of the C and C++ programming languages, having written “The Elements of Programming Style” with Brian W. Kernighan. He write a small number of novels and short stories from the seventies to 2003.
“√-1 Think, Therefore √-1 Am” by Leonard Isaacs† (1000) – No reply. This was Isaacs’ only short story, though he wrote several poems and quite a few essays on science fiction, especially on the science in science fiction. The title of this work is a pun; for those who know their number systems in mathematics, the square root of -1 is denoted ‘i’, thus the title is repeating Descartes famous maxim.
“The Taut Arc of Desire” by Philippe Curval (7200) (both French and English versions). This story was published in 1999 under its original French title ‘L’arc tendu du désir’ in the anthology ‘Les horizons divergents’. The English version has never been published. Curval is the pen name of Philippe Tronche, a well-known Parisian writer whose last published work was in 2019. He died in 2023.
“The Return of Agent Black” by Ron Goulart † (3800) – No reply. Goulart was born in 1923. He wrote many original SF novels, but he is most famous for ghost-writing the Tekwar novels for William Shatner. He died in 2022.
“Thumbing it on the Beam and Other Magic Melting Moments” by D. M. Rowles (2000) – No reply. DM Rowles is the pen name of Deborah Sheppard. She has had a series of short pieces, ‘Intermezzo’ 1 to 8, purchased by Ellison and included by JMS in LDV. Rowles had one short story called ‘This Is No Reflection on You’ published in 1981 in the Colorado-based magazine ‘Pandora’. These were Rowles only stories though she wrote some poems and had six collections of this work published.
“End” by Raylyn Moore† (9250)
Moore was from Ohio in the US and she published a novel and roughly 30 short stories in the seventies and early eighties, with her last work in 1984. She was married to Ward Moore, of ‘Bring the Jubilee’ fame. She died in 2005. Her daughter Beth Penney said:
“While I am in possession of her manuscripts, the family has no plans to publish them.”
“Uncle Tom’s Time Machine” by John Jakes† (3000)
John Jakes was a prolific writer from the fifties to the seventies, with one or two works in the early nineties. He wrote many novellas for the ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E’ series, under the name Robert Hart Davis. His son replied with this message:
“…Thanks for your message and bringing this to my attention. I manage the literary properties for my family. There are no current plans to publish this story, but I will look into it. My Dad and Harlan Ellison were friends. I met Harlan at a science fiction convention (in St. Louis 1969, I think) and visited his house in Hollywood in 1970 with my family. And I remember the Dangerous Visions anthology well. I will be reading the new addition to the trilogy.”
“Adversaries” by Franklin Fisher† (4700) – No reply. This was the only story by Fisher submitted for publication.
“Copping Out” by Hank Davis (1000) – No reply. Davis wrote several short stories in the seventies, but is perhaps more well known in recent times as an essayist and anthologist. He drew together a volume of Keith Laumer’s ‘Bolo’ short stories in 2010, titled ‘The Best of the Bolos: Their Finest Hour’.
“Play Sweetly, In Harmony” by Joseph Green (6300) – No reply. Green worked as a technical and engineering writer and was a prolific writer of short stories. He published a small number of novels, mostly in the sixties and seventies.
“Cargo Run” by William E. Cochrane† (18800) – No reply. This unpublished story used Cochrane’s pen-name S. Kye Boult. He wrote about a dozen short stories in the 1970s and two novels. He returned to SF in 1992 with one story, but died in 1993.
“The Red Dream” by Charles Platt (9800) – No reply. Londoner Platt is a prolific reviewer and essayist on SF and has published a small number of novels and short fiction.
“The Life and the Clay” by Edgar Pangborn† (6500)
This was one of the best results! Connor Cochrane was previously a member of his Estate and he let me read the story! He also said that as far as he knows the current Estate is not publishing anything. Honestly, I’m sad that this story will likely remain unpublished. It’s a story of early human history, when different species or subspecies of early human beings lived nomadic lives in parallel. The first group we encounter in the story may be early homo sapiens, but they are unable to speak. A woman falls behind from her pack and she is surprised by a small hairy hominid from a different species, possibly a Neanderthal. These two individuals from very different subspecies copulate and the woman becomes pregnant; later she has a hybrid baby who becomes our main point-of-view character for most of the story. This baby is hairy, undersized and physically disabled, though very strong, and in particular cannot run. He is intelligent but like his parents he cannot speak. Eventually he is cast out from his pack for being so different and he is forced to live on his own. While living in a cave he discovers that he can mold clay into figures that will harden and “come to life.” He has discovered art! Later, he happens upon a new race of roaming people. This species has mastered fire and has language, clearly anatomically modern humans. He captures one of their women when they are alone and takes her to his cave. Their relationship is complex, she resists him at first but then seems to warm to him. He makes her a clay bracelet with a human figure dangling from it. The woman is rescued by her tribe because she was the chieftain’s daughter and during this rescue, the hybrid is killed. She keeps the bracelet but one of the chieftain’s women throws it away so they would not be reminded that she had been abducted. At the end of the story, it is revealed to the reader that this bracelet survives hundreds of thousands of years to the present where it sits in a museum with its organs, nature and true significance unknown to us.
Edgar Pangborn was born in New York City in 1909; his mother was Georgia Wood Pangborn, a noted writer of supernatural fiction. He studied music at Harvard University from 1924, when he was still only 15 years old, but left in 1926 without graduating. He then studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but again did not graduate. On leaving he abandoned music, turning to writing. His first novel, ‘A-100: A Mystery Story’, was published under the pseudonym “Bruce Harrison” in 1930. Over the next 20 years he wrote numerous stories for the pulp detective and mystery magazines. In the early 1950s Pangborn published several well-regarded stories under his own name in ‘Galaxy’, ‘The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’ and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His work was part of a trend for more ‘humanist’ science fiction; Ursula K. Le Guin credited Pangborn and Theodore Sturgeon with convincing her that it was possible to write worthwhile, humanly emotional stories within science fiction and fantasy. His two most famous works are probably his second science fiction novel, ‘A Mirror for Observers’, and the Hugo-nominated post-apocalyptic story ‘Davy’ from 1964. He died in 1976.
Book Three
“Dreamwork, A Novel” by Pamela Zoline (16000) – No reply. Zoline is a well-known environmental activist in Colorado. She wrote a small number of hugely impactful stories, most notably “The Heat Death of the Universe” from 1967. She cofounded an environmentalist group called the Telluride Institute and she also runs a SF archive, the Clute Science Fiction Library
“The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or By the Light of the Silvery” by the Firesign Theatre (5000)
According to the Firesign Theatre archivist/producer Taylor Jessen
“That script can be read in its entirety in Firesign’s book “Big Mystery Joke Book.” The script in the book is identical to the one used to make the record.”
The album was called “The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra” and it came out in 1974. The Firesign Theatre were a comedy troop formed in 1966. They produced many albums and performed several radio programs. They continued to be active off and on until 2012.
“The Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending” by Russell Bates†-
“The Last Quest” (2500)
“Fifth and Last Horseman” (5000)
I have been in touch with his sister Arlene Bates Caesar and she is looking for these stories to send me a copy. Bates wrote a small number of short stories in the seventies. He co-wrote an episode of ‘Star Trek the Animated Series’ titled “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth,” which won an Emmy Award. He died in 2018.
“XYY” by Vonda McIntyre† (1600)
McIntyre’s estate’s agent, Jennie Goloboy from the Donald Maass Literary Agency, told me that the short story has just been published in the collection: ‘Little Sisters and Other Stories’. Vonda McIntyre was born in 1948 in Kentucky. By training she was a biologist, gaining a degree in 1970, but also attended the Clarion Writers workshop in the same year. The following year, she founded the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle, Washington, with the support of Clarion founder Robin Scott Wilson. She contributed to the workshop until 1973. She published her first novel, ‘The Exile Waiting’, in 1975 and in the following year produced the anthology ‘Aurora: Beyond Equality’ with Susan Janice Anderson. This anthology was themed around feminist and humanist science fiction and included an earlier novelette version of ‘Woman on the Edge of Time’ by Marge Piercy. McIntyre won a Nebula Award in 1973 for the novelette ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’. in 1978, she expanded this story to the novel ‘Dreamsnake’, possibly her best-known work, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. McIntyre was only the third woman to receive the Hugo Award for Best Novel. She wrote a number of Star Trek and Star Wars novels, including ‘The Entropy Effect’, developed by McIntyre from a screenplay that she wrote at age 18. It convinced Pocket Books to assign McIntyre the novelizations of ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’, ‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’ and ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’.
“The Burning Zone” by Graham Charnock (6000) – No reply. Charnock wrote a dozen short stories from 1968 to 1997 and several essays. He was also a co-editor for New Worlds magazine in 1969.
“Cacophony in Pink and Ochre” by Doris Pitkin Buck† (5500) – No reply. Doris P Buck was born in 1898 and was a founding member of the Science Fiction Writers of America. She was first published in the fifties, when she herself was 54, writing roughly 20 short stories. Many were on the shortlists for the Nebula Award. She died in 1980.
“The Accidents of Blood” by Frank Bryning† (5500) – No reply. Australian author Bryning was born in 1907 and was 45 when he published his first story. He published just over twenty stories from the fifties to the seventies, then one more in 1995. He died in 1999.
“On the Other Side of Space, In the Lobby of the Potlatch Inn” by Wallace West† (6500) – No reply. West was born in 1900 and published his first story in the late twenties. Some of his work is available at Project Gutenberg. He died in 1980.
“Two From Kotzwinkle’s Bestiary” by William Kotzwinkle (5000) – No reply. Kotzwinkle is best known for the novelisation of the film “ET: The Extraterrestrial.”
“The Seadragon” by Laurence Yep (17000) – No reply. Yep is a noted children’s author and a writer of fantasy that often draws on his Chinese heritage.
“Emerging Nation” by Alfred Bester† (2000) – No reply. This is the great Alfred Bester, best known for his novels ‘The Demolished Man’, which won the first Hugo Award in 1953 for best novel, and the hugely influential “The Stars My Destination” from 1956, published in Britain as ‘Tiger! Tiger!’ Bester wrote several novels in the sixties and seventies that were clearly part of or influenced by the New Wave, but they were arguably less successful than the two major novels listed.
“Ugly Duckling Gets the Treatment and Becomes Cinderella Except Her Foot’s Too Big for the Prince’s Slipper and Is Webbed Besides” by Robert Thurston (3500) – No reply. Thurston was well known as a short story writer and as the author of many tie-in and shared-universe novels, notably those from the original Battlestar Galactica, with Glen A. Larson.
“Golgotha” by Graham Hall† (3200) – No reply. Hall was an editor of the English magazine ‘New Worlds’ with Graham Charnock, mentioned above, in 1969. He had two short stories published in 1966 and he also wrote a large number of reviews and essays on SF in the mid-sixties.
“Las Animas” by Janet Nay (6800) – No reply. This was apparently Nay’s only story and it was never published.
“False Premises” by George Alec Effinger†
This story came in four parts: “The Capitals Are Wrong” (4000), “Stage Fright” (2500), “Rocky Colavito Batted .268 in 1955” (5500) and “Fishing With Hemingway” (3000). I talked to his widow Barbara Hambly who said:
“If it was written before 1991 (which was the year he and I met) it may very well have been destroyed in the apartment fire he had shortly before we met. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
I told her to contact JMS as he should still have a copy. Effinger was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1947, spending his childhood in poverty. He moved to New York City, began writing and got married. His then wife Diana was an occasional babysitter for Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm. He joined the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, which they sponsored. His first published works date from this time and his first novel, ‘What Entropy Means to Me’ was nominated for the Nebula Award. He is best known for the trilogy of Marîd Audran novels, starting with ‘When Gravity Fails’ in 1987. They are set in a 22nd-century Middle Eastern city but widely understood to be a thinly veiled version of the French Quarter of New Orleans, with a cyberpunk overlay. His novelette ‘Schrödinger’s Kitten’ from 1988 received both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. Effinger suffered from bad health all his life and died in 2002, aged only 55.
“Halfway There” by Stan Dryer (3000)
Stan Dryer was born in 1936 and has had 6 speculative stories published starting in 1968. According to Stan’s blog he stopped writing in the 90s and ran a used bookstore with his wife, but started writing again in 2018 after his wife passed away. Stan told me:
“I did some rewrites to “Halfway There” [in 2019] and tried to get Fantasy and Science Fiction to publish it, but it was turned down, with the comment something like “Just because Harlan Ellison liked it, doesn’t mean we would like it.” ”
He says in the introduction to the story on his blog,
“the story was pretty much as it was originally written. The only major change I made was to put New York City underwater.”
The story is available here: https://standryer.com/halfway-there/. In the story Blakes is a ‘wedger’, someone who guides a person through the crowds of the city’s underground moving streets which must be navigated in environmental suits. He guides a woman called Linda 449326, a successful career woman. She decided she wants to bed Blakes but first by law they have to get married. She has been married many times before and is trying to reach 50 marriages. Blakes on the other hand has old-fashioned ideas about staying married to someone for life, ideas he got from reading his grandmother’s journal. The story ends with Linda humming and singing a popular song about getting married many times.
“Suzy is Something Special” by Michael G. Coney† (8000) – No reply. Coney was a British science fiction writer best known for his novel ‘Hello Summer, Goodbye’. He was a prolific author in the eighties and nineties and also an essayist and critic. He died in 2005.
Missing or added stories
“Where Are They Now?” by Steven Bryan Bieler
Bieler wrote several short stories in the eighties, with the last story (as listed by the ISFDB) in 1991. He published in the anthologies ‘American Fiction 3’, ‘Full Spectrum 1’, ‘New Dimensions 11’ and in the magazines ‘Asimov’s’ and ‘The Seattle Review’. This story was sold to LDV in 1984 and withdrawn in 1988. The story was published in Slow Trains Literary Journal in 2008 and is available online at: http://www.slowtrains.com/vol7issue4/bielervol7issue4.html. In the story, a young boy with a very active imagination imagines his stuffed animals and toys as part of his baseball team and recalls his “golden age” of baseball. This age was cut short by a bear stealing baby Trudy and an accident involving a toy and a milkman’s truck.
“Squad D” by Stephen King
Stephen King is possibly one of the most well-known living writers in the English language. He was born in 1947 and published his first novel ‘Carrie’ in 1974. He is primarily known for his horror novels, but has also explored suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. As well as his hugely popular novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most published in collections. In the SF world, King is probably best known for his novel ‘The Stand’ and the ‘Dark Tower’ series. This story was submitted to LDV in the late 1970s, but reportedly not accepted by Ellison in its initial draft. It was published by Richard Chizmar, a writer King had collaborated with before, in the anthology ‘Shivers VIII in 2019.
“How Dobbstown Was Saved” by Bob Leman
Leman’s story was sold to Ellison in 1981, then withdrawn and published in 2002 in Leman’s own collection ‘Feesters in the Lake and Other Stories’. He was born in 1922 and published his first story in 1967, when he was 45. He wrote horror as well as science fiction, usually in ‘The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’, throughout the seventies and eighties.
“The Swastika Set-Up” (10,000 words) and “The Murderer’s Song” by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock has been a towering figure in speculative fiction since the 1960s. He was born in London in 1939 and the city, especially the districts of Notting Hill Gate and Ladbroke Grove, influence some of his fiction, notably the Cornelius novels. He was editor of the highly influential British science fiction magazine ‘New Worlds’ from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, where he nurtured the “New Wave” of SF in Britain and eventually in the US. His publication of ‘Bug Jack Barron’ by Norman Spinrad in 1969 as a serial novel was notorious; in Parliament, some British MPs condemned the Arts Council of Great Britain for funding the magazine. His science fiction novel ‘Behold The Man’ is one of the most controversial works in the field. In 2008, the British newspaper ‘The Times’ named Moorcock in its list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”. In the 1990s, Moorcock moved to Texas in the United States, as his wife Linda is from the US. He spends half of the year in Texas, the other half in Paris. Moorcock withdrew this story and replaced it with ‘The Murderer’s Song’, sometime between the 1973 and 1979 lists. “The Swastika Set-Up” was first published in a fanzine called Corridor in 1972 and then in the collection “The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius” in 1976.“The Murderer’s Song” was first published in the anthology “Tales From the Forbidden Planet” in 1987.
“The Isle of Sinbad” (10,000 words) by Thomas N. Scortia†
This story is still unpublished and I could not reach anyone about it. There is a quote from Ellison on his Wikipedia article that “He literally saved me from being court-martialed back in 1958.” Scortia was born in Illinois in the US in 1926 and earned a degree in chemistry in 1949. He worked for a number of aerospace companies from the fifties to the early seventies and held a patent for the fuel used by one of the Jupiter fly-by missions. He sold his first stories in the mid-fifties, but only wrote part-time until the mid-seventies. With increased redundancies in the aerospace industry in the mid-seventies, he became a full-time writer and produced several novels in the late seventies and eighties. His novel ‘The Glass Inferno’, written with Frank M. Robinson, was the basis for the 1974 film The Towering Inferno, along with the novel ‘The Tower’ by Richard Martin Stern. He died in 1986 from leukemia.
“A Thin Silver Line” by Steve Rasnic Tem
This was last announced as “forthcoming in The Last Dangerous Visions” in 1994 but was withdrawn and published in “The Unquiet Dreamer” anthology, a tribute to Ellison from 2019. Born in 1950, Tem has been writing since the seventies; he is prolific at short story length with roughly two dozen collections published. He writes mostly horror fiction and has won the Bram Stoker Award four times.
By John Grayshaw with Damian Mc Choiligh (who provided further research and writing)
John is a Library Manager in Pennsylvania and did the hard work of contacting the people referred to in this article. Damian is a lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics in Dublin (that’s the original and best one in Ireland, not any of the copies). John is also the Administrator of the ‘Science Fiction Book Club’ Facebook group and Damian is one of the crack team of moderators who work with him on promoting discussion and keeping order in the group.
