The Harlan Ellison Hornbook

A major collection of Harlan Ellison's incomparable, troublemaking, uncompromising, confrontational essays plus a foreward by award-winning author Robert Crais.

Table of Contents:
Author's Note
Foreword: The Cricket beneath The Hammer, By Robert Crais
Introduction: The Lost Secrets of East Atlantis
Installment 1: Everything I Know About My Father
2: Valerie, Part One
3: Valerie, Part Two
4: Valerie, Part Three
5: Getting Stiffed
6: The Tyranny of The Weak, And Some Foreshadowing
7: With Bloch And Bormann In Brazil
8: The First of 3 Culinary Comments
9: No Offense Intended, But Fuck Xmas!
10: The Day I Died
11-20: Harlan Ellison's Movie, A Complete Screenplay
21: Fair Weather Friends, Summer Soldiers, and Sunshine Patriots
22: Troubling Thoughts About Godhood, Part One
23: Bless That Pesky Wabbit
24: Troubling Thoughts About Godhood, Part Two
25: Where Shadow Collides With Reality: A Preamble
26: When I Was a Hired Gun, Part One
27: When I Was a Hired Gun, Part Two
28: A Rare, Kindly Thought
29: 3 Small Pleasures For a More Endurable Existence [Second Of 3 Culinary Comments]
30: Varieties of Venue
31: Why I Fantasize About Using an Ak-47 On Teenagers
32: In Which The Imp Of Delight Tries To Make The World Smile
Installment 33: I Go To Bed Angry Every Night, And Wake Up Angrier The Next Morning
34: Ahbhu
35: Death Row, San Quentin, Part One
36: Death Row, San Quentin, Part Two
37: College Days, Part One
38: The Death-Wish of A Golden Idea
39: College Days, Part Two
40: College Days, Part Three
41: The Last of 3 Culinary Comments, Gonzo-Style
42: Out of The Mail Bag
43: Oh, Dear, He's Not Going To Do Xmas Again, Is He?
44: The Death of My Mother, Serita R. Ellison
45: Enormous Dumb
46: Revealed At Last! What Killed The Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself.
Appendix A: Comic of The Absurd (1970)
B: Dogging It In The Great American Heartland (1974)
C: Darkness Falls In The City Of The Angels (1988)
D: Lenny Bruce Is Dead (1986)
E: Did Your Mother Throw Yours Out? (1988)
F: The Song The Sixties Sang ( 1 987/1 988)
G: The Dingbat Appendix (1990)

Note: Many of the numbered installments, and some of the appendixes, are preceded by Interim Memos, written for this volume, updating or providing background for the selection.

Cover Art by Leo & Diane Dillon

Ebook
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First E-Reads publication 2009
www.ereads.com

Harlan Ellison website: www.harlanellison.com

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical-including photocopy, recording, Internet posting, electronic bulletin board-or any other information storage and retrieval system, or by any other method, means or process of embodying and/or transmitting information, text or the spoken word now known or hereafter devised without permission in writing from The Kilimanjaro Corporation, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio, television or in a recognized on-line journal. For information address Author's agent: Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., 171 East 74^th Street, New York, New York 10021, USA.

ISBN-13: ERBAEN0069
ISBN-10: ERBAEN0069

Copyright © 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
THE HARLAN ELLISON HORNBOOK
is an Edgeworks Abbey^® Offering in association with ereads.com. Published by arrangement with the Author and The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Harlan Ellison and Edgeworks Abbey are registered trademarks of The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
This edition is copyright © 2009 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.

Front Cover Illustration by Leo & Diane Dillon.
Copyright © 1966 by Leo & Diane Dillon.
Renewed, © 1994 by Leo & Diane Dillon.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

E-Reads, Ltd.
171 East 74th St.
Second Floor
New York, NY 10021
http://www.ereads.com

Electronic version by Baen Books
https://www.baen.com

Foreword: "The Cricket Beneath the Hammer," by Robert Crais, copyright © 1990 by Robert Crais.

Author's Note and Introduction: "The Lost Secret of East Atlantis," copyright © 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Los Angeles Free Press, Los Angeles Free Weekly News and Saint Louis Literary Supplement "Hornbook" columns, copyright © 1972, 1973, 1976 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 2000, 2001, 2004 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Supplementary letters to the columns used with permission of the Los Angeles Free Press.

"Comic of the Absurd," copyright © 1970 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Dogging It in the Great American Heartland," copyright © 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Darkness Falls in the City of the Angeles," copyright © 1988 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Lenny Bruce Is Dead," copyright © 1986 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Did Your Mother Throw Yours Out?" (under the title "It Ain't Toontown"), copyright © 1988 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"The Song the Sixties Sang" (under the title "Hail the Light"), copyright © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One tries to be punctilious. No writer does it unassisted. Every one of us says the same thing, book after book. And sometimes the thankyous run for pages. Often, it is the only recognition the excellent typesetter or editorial assistant gets for the uncounted hours of labor in aid of a single book getting through the labyrinth. But because twenty years have elapsed since these columns were written, memory fails and time carries away the names of those who were there, indispensably, at a special moment. I apologize to those who read this and know their efforts were important. They are no less important than these few who are noted.

And so, in the name of all good friends, those who were, and are gone . . . those who are, and remain . . . Thanks to Brian Kirby, Art Kunkin, Tim Kirk, John Heidenry, Leo and Diane Dillon, Jack Chalker, Otto Penzler, Bill Malloy, Robert Crais, Dr. Sidney Coleman, Stanislaw Fernandes, Sharon Buck, David Loftus, Gahan Wilson, Mariana Hernández, Lynn Lehrhaupt, Ed Bryant; and a slug on the bicep to Gil Lament; and a kiss on the puss to my much better half, my wife Susan.

THIS ONE IS FOR
EDDIE LONDON
MORE THAN JUST A FRIEND
FOR TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS
AND FOR
BILL DIGNIN
WHOSE CAMARADERIE STRETCHES
BACK THROUGH THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS
TO DAYS OF YOUTH IN CLEVELAND