The Inescapable Presence of Harlan Ellison

The cantankerous legend hovers over modern science fiction; plus, utopian predictions for life in 2010 that wildly missed the mark

The reason I wanted to include Amazing Science Fiction Stories in “Flashback” is a little counter-intuitive for a project where I’m re-visiting my favorite science fiction from my youth: I want to re-read it because I didn’t particularly like Amazing and I want to see if I was wrong.

I was more of an Asimov’s kid — there’s a reason this project started with two issues of that magazine. I suspect that getting positive feedback from the editor for my first submission played a lot into that. Kindness goes a long way. But Asimov’s was a little more “gee whiz, bang bang” science fiction compared to Amazing, which I considered to be — to borrow a word of the moment — weird.

That’s obvious from the cover of this issue, a prime example of ‘70s surrealism by fantasy artist and illustrator Ian Miller. There’s nothing wrong with it, as a piece of art. It just has n…