I'm not going to pretend that I've read any Harlan Ellison - somebody emailed me this tidbit, from a book he bought. Here's the relevant parts of the email:

-------------------------------------------------- I recently bought (in the Indigo bookstore at the Manulife Centre in Toronto, Canada; they have other copies in stock, filed in the regular fiction section) a copy of a paperback of collected short fiction by Harlan Ellison, who's best known as an SF writer. It's called Angry Candy, and was originally published in 1988. The stories share the theme of death, and Ellison in his introduction talks about his inspiration: the fact that many friends of his died in the years 1985-87. One of these was his fellow SF hack Ron Hubbard, of whom he says in that introduction:

"Ron Hubbard and Emily [Austin] went in January of '86. I hadn't seen Ron in decades, but we'd exchanged a few letters; and despite the loonytunes scene his Dianetics and Scientology had become, he was always still just Ron Hubbard, who'd written 'To the Stars' and 'Final Blackout' and 'Fear' and 'Typewriter in the Sky' and 'Slaves of Sleep', all of which great pulp fiction I can still reread with pleasure; and he was not some sort of mysterious recluse with a worldwide following of dippy 'clears' who are so scared someone will let light into their cultish religion that they sue people who talk in their sleep, one supposes, rather than suffer any negative comment.

He was just Ron and I kinda liked him, mostly because he wrote well, and I never felt he took all that Scientology nonsense seriously but knew how to make a good buck, and he liked me, and... well, he was a friend who died."

Hard Candy is published by Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Company.

-------------------------------------------------- -- Scientology's gate is down. -- http://www.total.net/~wulfen/scn/ http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8412/ Message-ID: <39934F7F.6C219F3C@mail.com>
From: M <suppressive@mail.com>
Subject: Re: Harlan Ellison on L. Ron Hubbard
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 00:57:48 GMT
Organization: RoadRunner - TampaBay
Harlan Ellison has long been my favorite science fiction writer...Highly recommended! "A Boy and His Dog" is a great underground film, if you can find it. Ellison wrote the story, and it starred Don Johnson when he was about 19...other stories that are classic include "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," and an episode of the original Star Trek series, "The City on the Edge of Forever."

Here is a link to an article/interview of Ellison in which he goes into how he was present when L. Ron came up with the whole Scientology idea...

http://www.users.wineasy.se/noname/harlan.htm M "Wulfen - www.total.net/~wulfen/scn/" wrote:

> I'm not going to pretend that I've read any Harlan Ellison - somebody
> emailed me this tidbit, from a book he bought. Here's the relevant
> parts of the email:
>
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> I recently bought (in the Indigo bookstore at the Manulife Centre in
> Toronto, Canada; they have other copies in stock, filed in the regular
> fiction section) a copy of a paperback of collected short fiction by
> Harlan Ellison, who's best known as an SF writer. It's called Angry
> Candy, and was originally published in 1988. The stories share the
> theme of death, and Ellison in his introduction talks about his
> inspiration: the fact that many friends of his died in the years
> 1985-87. One of these was his fellow SF hack Ron Hubbard, of whom he
> says in that introduction:
>
> "Ron Hubbard and Emily [Austin] went in January of '86. I hadn't seen
> Ron in decades, but we'd exchanged a few letters; and despite the
> loonytunes scene his Dianetics and Scientology had become, he was
> always still just Ron Hubbard, who'd written 'To the Stars' and 'Final
> Blackout' and 'Fear' and 'Typewriter in the Sky' and 'Slaves of
> Sleep', all of which great pulp fiction I can still reread with
> pleasure; and he was not some sort of mysterious recluse with a
> worldwide following of dippy 'clears' who are so scared someone will
> let light into their cultish religion that they sue people who talk in
> their sleep, one supposes, rather than suffer any negative comment.
> He was just Ron and I kinda liked him, mostly because he wrote well,
> and I never felt he took all that Scientology nonsense seriously but
> knew how to make a good buck, and he liked me, and... well, he was a
> friend who died."
>
> Hard Candy is published by Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Company.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> -- Scientology's gate is down. --
> http://www.total.net/~wulfen/scn/
> http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8412/

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