The point being, Ellison saw something deeply sinister in fandom, and, by the time he passed away in 2018, he’d lived to see this kind of dark behavior go from a fringe, almost cult element at genre conventions to a form of mainstream support for massive corporate entities like Marvel and Disney.

Among the stories told in “Xenogenesis” is one about an anonymous letter Ellison received celebrating the death of Ellison’s friend and fellow writer James Blish. As the guest of honor at the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference in 1984, Ellison delivered a speech (later published under the title “Xenogenesis,” in his collection Over the Edge) in which he details at length-in print the essay is close to 40 pages-the many experiences he and other science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers have had with unhinged fans. And not in a glib, “you guys are such nerds” sort of way. Put simply, throughout his career Ellison regularly called out fans on their BS.

Anybody who actually believes that should probably ask themselves how Ellison could have possibly gotten away with so public a murder, but there is a reason why the idea of the pugnacious author inflicting violence upon a fan might be easily believed. One story-a false one-that plagued Ellison is that once, at a science fiction convention, he threw a fan down an elevator shaft. Many stories about him, true and false, created a public image of the late writer of speculative fiction (his preferred term) that often overshadowed his work. Harlan Ellison’s reputation tended to precede him.

Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison