The US Air Force unofficially claims that the best fighter pilots have balls the size of grapefruits and brains the size of a pea. Some might say that the same qualities would be required to walk in Harlan Ellison’s footsteps. Harlan is always a hard act to follow, and it’s daunting even to try.
This is a sequel to Harlan’s classic Outer Limits teleplay, “Soldier.” When I first asked if he would consider letting me play in his world and create a new tale, he was very skeptical. Given the sheer number of abysmal sequels and bad spinoffs that have graced bookstore racks and theater screens, I suppose he had good reason. “I’ve never done a sequel to a single one of my stories,” he told me. “I never felt the need. If I got it right the first time, I’ve said all I needed to say.”
In the course of my writing career I have gathered a lot of rejection slips, and I never learned to give up when common sense dictated that I should. I stood my ground with Harlan and challenged him. “Look, you’ve developed this sprawling scenario of a devastating future war, where soldiers are bred and trained to do nothing but fight from birth to death. Are you telling me that there’s only ONE story to be told in that whole world?”
He thought a bit, and then he changed his mind. So, I got to play with Harlan Ellison’s toys.
“Prisoner of War” is my tap-dance on Harlan’s stage, set in the devastating world of “Soldier,” which was a huge influence on me from the first time I saw it on TV. It is a story about another set of warriors in a never-ending war, men bred for nothing but the battleground—and how they cope with the horrors of … peace.
As a final note, this story was written on the road during the most grueling book-signing tour I ever hope to do—a nationwide blitz of twenty-seven cities in twenty-eight days (during which, in the event in Hollywood, I set the Guinness World Record for “Largest Single-Author Book Signing”). I dictated “Prisoner of War” in an unknown number of hotel rooms, wandering down city sidewalks, or at whatever park happened to be closest, before the day’s work of interviews and autograph sessions began. The chance to do something creative and emotionally engaging gave me something to look forward to during the long, long month.