1982 - Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Gene Wolfe on science fiction
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2013
- Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Wolfe discuss science-fiction writing with Studs Terkel and Calvin Trillin on the Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS), the predecessor of today's A&E (Arts and Entertainment Network). The program was called "Nightcap: Conversations on the Arts and Letters." All copyrights in the original material are acknowledged. This video is posted for purposes of historical documentation and research, not for commercial purposes. No infringement is intended, but only fair use.
Any defects in audio quality are the side effect of filtering out a loud tape hiss. 
Развлечения
The fact that Harlan didn't knife anyone on set shows he respected these guys.
lol
Ellison is very restrained in this piece. Much more than usual. You can tell he is in the company of men he respects.
Yeah, I've met him in person, back in the 70s, and he was usually anything but subdued. More like a hyperactive kid.
This is him subdued? Yikes.
@@Undone545 oh he's VERY subdued here. Look around and try to find where he talks about picking a fist fight with Frank Sinatra & his goons.
@@Undone545 oh yeah. I had personal interaction with him, which makes this look like a 19th century intellectual discussion in a cafe.
@@Undone545 yeah man, he got thrown out of university for punching an academic who criticised his writing
the warning should have been "The following program contains Harlan Ellison ,. Viewer discretion advised. "
Yet it was Gene who said "Son of a bitch, mother fucker."
@@Ematched Nadie és santo
Ya gotta love Harlan the pugnacious & the outrageous.
The warning should've been 'The Following program contains a Highly intellectual discussion: Morons be advised'
Why the hell can't "SyFy" have a simple show like this? A nightly, late night talk show about the f'ing BOOKS?
Because these are intelligent, thoughtful, literate, well-read older men (Who write books!) that don't look like models, or at the other end of the spectrum to get the geek-culture crowd, the cast of The Big Bang Theory. A show like this requires the ability to think and to focus. This seems to be anathema to the modern viewing public.
I know! I would love to hear what Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling would have to say.
Robert White exactly.
Sadly, don't think it would be popular enough. Had hopes SF writers would be a big part of the programming when I first heard about the network. Would have been so much more enjoyable than the incessant re-runs/infomercials. By the time our cable system finally began carrying it all references to books were long gone.
Try The Geeks Guide To The Galaxy podcast in lieu of sy fy channel
If they had a show like this today, I'd howl with excitement everytime it came on.
To think that these titans are not with us anymore deeply saddens me.
The following program contains adults having an intelligent discussion.
+SufferingFoolsMusic ..and its so refreshing to see that . Unfortunately now most of television consists of mindless entertainment with not just 'adult language' but outright vulgar language .....and unfortunately they dont care about warning us about it .
Indeed. And apparently you could use the useful word "bullshit" in a 1982 television program!
Cable.
Glad to see you cut right to what's important ... for you.
Thanks for the warning.
The Book of The New Sun is phenomenal.
I agree and half the time I don't know what's going on in that book!!!
Its a book you gotta read 3 times to get it @PackerBronco
Three ages of science fiction represented here. Isaac Asimov with the Golden Age. Harlan Ellison with the New Wave. And Gene Wolfe with ... ah ... with the Gene Wolfe age of which he is the only member.
PackerBronco Spot On!
Age of the Autarch.
Haha apt
Yeah Ellison and Asimov. Expect adult language.
Larry Niven said; "gene wolfe is quietly writing us all under the table".
Gene Wolfe brought me here.
same. Do you know of any similar videos? There are tons of Asimov for example but nothing of Gene. I guess that's the price of being prolific.
I think Wolfe is a humble person who lets his work speak for him.
What brought me was the idea of mixing these very different guys together.
The following program contains...
Harlan Ellison
We haven't really moved forward in the last forty years. We've moved backward. We are descending into a kind of technobarbarism. And I say that as a Gen Xer who was a child when this interview aired.
Sad but true. Fellow Gen Xer here.
I am a millennial and I wouldn't Mind a good discussion show on Occasion
I like Asimov, and I love Ellison, but Wolfe is an unparalleled genius.
Got it in one toastheen
AMEN! Not even close
and they all know that. no one would guess from this at first.
Indeed:)
Never heard of
I can't believe this was only 25 minutes long. I wanted two hours at least.
Me also. Ive been on a real Azimov kick lately.
It's such an efficient 25 minutes though. It had real natural flow and everyone got to say something that really speaks to their character and their art. Ellison is so comfortable here compared to his notorious manner.
Imagine getting these three together and then only having 25 minutes of airtime to show it in. And I bet the original pre-edit recordings are long gone.
Bro I can't believe I never heard of Gene Wolfe before a few years ago when I heard GRRM talk about it and then a few more writers I enjoy. So I decided to finally read the book of the new sun. It's fkn incredible
Holy shit, talk about a powerhouse panel. What's better than intelligent people talking about intelligent things?
Amazing group and Studs as the host made this just perfect. Never seen Harlan so restrained. Also love how it ended, as if we we were allowed to eavesdrop on a private party. All gone now sadly but left their mark.
I've read all three authors works back to back. Gene Wolfe was by far the most intellectual, challenging and useful to my own development of any of theirs
. Three excellent authors but Wolfe asks the most from his reader but also gives the most by far
I really wanted and wished this TV show to go on for another 3 hours .
It was way too short , but anyway , i enjoyed every second .
This kids is called discourse. You'll never find it on Twitter.
Far too short, they were gust getting warmed up. Thank you for preserving this for us!
Gene wolfe is awesome
This is probably the greatest RUclips thing I've seen in about a year. Also Gene Wolfe is nothing like how I pictured him. Obviously he shouldn't look EXACTLY like Severian, but even so...:)
Beautiful comment. I exploded in laughter.
ditto -- my first glimpse of Gene -- did not know!
I've seen one picture of him from the 1950's, fairly tall dark and handsome so a fit for Severian.
But should he have dressed as him...
Fun fact about Gene Wolfe: he helped invent Pringles but any resemblance between him and the mascot is purely coincidence.
Why are there no TV shows like this anymore ?
There are plenty of debates and discussions and panels across the world that you can go to. It exists all over google, give Hitchens or someone a search and you'll find a bunch of debates by all kinds of people on all kinds of things. TV in my country, the UK, still has some interesting things on it, but generally, I don't watch it. This is like people saying "I miss the 90s, music is so awful now"; they're missing out on all kinds of new groups, new sounds, old sounds etc. good music still exists, it's not the mainstream like it wasn't the mainstream when it was first written. It's out there, man!
You really do not know what you are talking about.
justgivemethetruth Because the USA became super stupid.
youtubers XD
You are correct. A culmination of anti-intellectualism pervades mainstream culture. You can find panels and discussions on very high faluting topics yes, but mouthbreathers have occupied the mainstream.
R.I.P. Isaac and Harlan...
Yep
And Gene.
Yes. I met Asimov at the 1979 American Chemical Society Meeting in Boston. He signed a couple of my books, of my ever growing collection. He was very much full of lust and flirt.
I collected Hal Clement. I read and collected everyone. Ellison was an unpredictable ass. I would have loved to meet Heinlein, but would have frozen with terror.
WHY DO PEOPLE HATE LITERATURE AND SCIENCE SO MUCH?
Gene Wolfe was such a gentleman.
At 8:00, Ellison says something rather interesting that in 1960, Robert Heinlein failed to predict that space exploration would be the province and effort of governments. Instead, he postulated that it would be big business that fosters the space program from its own, "backyard". Fast Forward to 2021...Heinlein has been proved correct on a lot of that now! Fascinating to see Gene Wolfe. I would never guess that the Book of the New Sun would come from someone who looks so...normal.
Man i wish there was a part 2!
Really interesting conversation about such an amazing literary genre.I wish TV networks still showed intelligent material like this rather than all those ridiculous "reality" shows that are all over the place and make people look at how other people live their lives rather than their own.Luckily,thanks to science,computers and RUclips I have the freedom of what I want to watch and how I want to watch it.
Wow. If only we could get programming like this in 2023 ..
Che la terra ti sia lieve, Mr. Wolfe.
Amen
I need to digitize my copy of this - it's slightly better. One of the best episodes of anything, ever
Yeah, the early Panasonic tapes like this one degraded badly over the years.
So? We're waiting .....
Well?
Still here!
Please??!
Very interesting interview, although the interviewers are annoying, they keep interrupting the writers. Nice example of the 3 kinds of writers, at least in Sci-Fi: the scientist, Asimov, who's very comfortable here. The marketer Ellison, with the pretty face and the leather jacket, and the literary genius, Wolfe, who clearly is uncomfortable here.
I don’t read or like science fiction, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to experts debate it. Thank you for uploading this.
This comment was deleted by the original poster, but because it's interesting I'll repeat it here:
'It turns out Asimov was wrong about no predictions of TV from space or the
Moon. One such story is "The Planeteer" (1918) by Homer Eon Flint. The
activities of the astronauts were televised and the audience could ask them
questions. This and a number of other stories were noted in letters in
Asimov's SF Magazine (April 1987 and November 1988).'
Deathbird! The Gods Themselves! Love these guys!
Thanks for posting this!
I've spent countless hours reading Asimov and Ellison,and loved every minute.What a treat to listen to them talk on the subject of Science Fiction.They have such different attitudes on the subject,makes the world go round.Cool
Now go read some Gene Wolfe. Most underrated SF author and easily one of the best living authors, period. It's a shame he was so quiet on the subject, because his view is the third position that ties them together while still going in a completely different direction.
Making a recommendation is difficult, but Fifth Head of Cerberus is the most self-contained and traditionally sci-fi while the Book of the New Sun is sex, drugs, and a religious experience on IV drip to your brainstem over four volumes. Either way you get the slingshot ending and are left unraveling what you read for much, much longer than it took you to read it.
Wonderful......thank you for posting this.
SO great - thanks for posting! I found out about this on the Harlan Ellison website.
Glad I finally watched this. Been meaning to get to it for a week or more. Good stuff. Thanks for posting.
The moment where Harlan smiles at the Ghandi comment, you can see the respect beaming from his body language.
This was interesting. Thanks for making it available.
This is actual footage of Isaac before his bypass surgery 5 years after his heart attack. He never comments on whether he had a stent or angioplasty. He also never commented on whether he was taking a statin cholesterol reducing drug which were not available to the public until 1987. This is one year before he receives his fatal contaminated blood transfusion.
As mr. Arthur Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic ..." and Jack Vance proved it best of all
I dunno, So much of Wolfe's "Solar Cycle" is founded on that. A very ancient Urth of wonders and lit often by fire. "They had scientists then."
It is so fascinating to watch them all interacting together about literature, in general, and SciFi Lit and their own work and their ideas. Very Cool! I love them all.
Wonderful video.
Thank you for the upload and sharing it.
Peaceful Skies.
Amazing! Thanks so much for this!
Thanks so much for sharing this.
Thanks for this. Nice to see Asimov and Ellison talk about this stuff.
Thank you so much for this!
what an interesting group. a true prose stylist, a masterful science fiction genre writer and science popularizer, and the fiercest critic of his era.
Kudos to Terkel for reading their books and conducting an intelligent conversation.
Thanks for uploading this. It's causing a bit of a stir! There is an article in the LA Times under the title 'Harlan Ellison recalls the day he assaulted his publisher' that links to this video published yesterday.
I have to give this a thumb's up just for the name Studs Terkel
Isaac, Harlan, Calvin, Studs... man I would have loved to be at that dinner.
Trillin is my favorite writer.
You forgot the best writer, Wolfe!
@@GH-oi2jfCalvin Trillin is the host
Thank You for this!
I love Harlan and Isaac. they're just great.
its bothered me all day that whoever posted this video just flippantly left Wolfe's name out of the title...i like Asimov and Ellison but Wolfe is in my opinion not only the best writer on this show but the best writer that i know of currently living.
thenightlamp1 Just trying to keep the title short, but have it your own way. :)
I would have to politely disagree that Wolfe is better than Asimov
Asimov is a master, but the quality of prose that Ellison and Wolfe produce--especially Wolfe--to me should be deemed Nobel worthy. Le Guin is also right there with Wolfe, in my opinion. Unfortunately, the literati would never acknowledge them in such a way.
That said, Asimov's stories have brought me to tears more than the work of any other writer period.
A mi hijo mayór le gusta Ellison, Brunner, y Clarke
HOT take big agree
Excellent, thank you
I wish Heinlein had been present. My favorite Science Fiction author.
It's almost crazy to read this comment section where Isaac Asimov is called an amateur just for the reason of what company is gathered there. I consider myself a great fan of science fiction, yet I've never even heard of Gene Wolfe. I guess I have to fix this.
Did you fix it? Wolfe us more of a cult following, Asimov is surely more popular. I like both.
Great to hear Isaac Asimov speak
Great stuff. Thanks.
Thank you.
They only scratch the surface.
now thats what I call a nightcap!
Norm Macdonald has said "Nobody is more hated then the smartest guy in the room". Wolfe, like Norm, IS the smartest guy in the room. But they're so smart they recognize that it's more important to be personable than to beat someone down with self perceived importance. He could duck walk any of these other writers out of town, but doesn't because he genuinely enjoys the discourse.
"These other writers"
Asimov and Ellison are not just "other writers" my guy. The three writers comprised some of the greatest minds in literary fiction, and to try and state that one was the "smartest guy in the room" is just plain idiotic. They are all incredible geniuses and we are lucky as a species that they were all able to talk with one another in the brief window of time they each spent on Earth.
Hahaha, you can't be the smartest person in the room if you're religious and someone else isn't.
Thanks... that really does explain why he was so down on the term "science fiction" at the moment.
Such a flamboyant host. What a peculiar show this is. It's formatted a bit like Crossfire, only calmer.
7:50 that National Geographic joke was underrated
Not enough time ....waaaahhhh!.....Just when the conversation is starting to really get going ....it ends....That's Life I guess.
A PBS broadcast undoubtedly.
Broadcast the year, unbeknownst to the panel and guests, the u.s.a. took a terrible vote which left the MIDDLE CLASS in rags 40 years later. Civility has left the building .
1960s & 70s were so much greater.
So great to hear from these masters.
Happy b- day ,Issac.
The Intro was enough for a Thumbs Up
I'd love to see a version of this with the audio cleaned up with some sci-fi (XD) audio editing or something if possible.
Regardless, holy shit, this is a fascinating thing to listen to.
Hmmm a little bit of a confused format but I love seeing and hearing these great thinkers and doers together. Thanks alot for this.
Amazing video. Feels like I stumbled upon hidden jewels
Terkel had the best chair.
--Bill Bixby, in the credits, on camera!
Lordy, I hope there's a better copy of this out there somewhere!
Let Wolfe talk! He's the most talented writer there.
But Asimov has the best muttonchops
I haven’t read him, but I’m truly convinced to read him influenced by Gaiman
What book do you guys recommend for starting reading Wolfe?
@@carlosmanuelloperena7362 For something short read The Fifth Head of Cerberus. For something long read The Book of the New Sun(It's the books 1 - Shadow & Claw and 2 - Sword & Citadel).
@@carlosmanuelloperena7362 Tough question. What do you like? Historical novel? Soldier books. Fantasy? Wizard Knight. Ghost story? Peace. Sci-fi? 5th Head or Book of the New Sun (it's 4 books, plus Urth of the New Sun) I like them all, but Peace and 5th head are both self contained, yet chewy. And... for any of them, to get the most mileage, you have to read them twice. Different story the second time through...
Fascinating and far too short!
At the inception of the Sci-Fi channel it was headed in this direction and some of their programs were intellectually stimulating and thought provoking, IMO, but like everything else in creative endeavors corporations interfere, they Americanize, homogenize and sterilize. The funny thing is 38 years later, it’s still the same bull shit, nothing has changed, yay!; The thought that came to my mind, many years shortly afterwards of this “roundtable” discussion and not even knowing this took place, was, we are on our own and those with half a brain have to fight for their sanity because governments are not going to fed our intellectual nourishment.
Wolfe.. sanity and divine.
“The following program contains adult language.” Sounds about right for Ellison.
my time reversal experiments are proceeding more slowly than i had hoped
You’ll get there in the end
11:10 is a great snippet from Gene's web of a mind
The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is, Science Fiction doesn't have a tree on the cover.
First podcast ever
If a TV channel wanted to recreate this interview today, they'll have to take Alistair Reynolds to fill in for Asimov, Gaiman for Ellison and... hard to tell who can replace Wolfe, possibly Haldeman.
It's a little sad when they talk about book stores, a thing vanishing from the world.
Perhaps in the future, we will have gathering places for book lovers without any commercial intentions involved instead of stores. I think that would be an improvement.
@@NuntiusLegis They call that lectures and schools. Support independent bookstores. If you don't know the value of indie bookstores, I pity you.
@@jdd8826 Lectures and schools are mainly places to learn, not to discuss what has been learned. Indie bookstores also exist in the internet already; buildings where books are sold are not effective as places for discussions.
Whether this is a sign of cultural standards declining or not, I can't say, but I feel that Asimov was too harsh on Alien (perhaps even missing its point). It's true that it's not singularly centered around any particular scientific theorem and that it's essentially a "haunted house in space", but it's no Star Wars either. Corporations developing/harsnessing biological weapons, using their own employees as test subjects, commercial ships being flown by blue collar "space truckers" rather than scientists etc.
I agree. It seems like a contemptuous dismissal almost, but I think it's a rather shallow one. I suspect it is more indicative of his feeling toward the media intruding into the genre, voiced in similar terms by other science fiction authors of the time.
Morteus
It's infuriating to see something that you love being bastardized and that bastardization gaining much wider mass appeal&recognition. I can't imagine how it must feel when that something you love is also something you helped to create.
"Alien" was more of a political/art-house movie than a real science-fiction movie. But then, I can't see what he is upset about because H. G. Wells wrote stories like "Alien" and you could even point out similarities to the "War of the Worlds" in the Alien movie.
I don't see much wrong with what Asimov said.
He was just making the point that the base story in Alien could be set anywhere hence, it's not really science fiction, (nor was he saying it's a terrible film).
Asimov is an engineer, so he wants, (and wrote), for things to have plausible explanations.
Any sci-fi based on a unscientific premise, (like Mass Effect technology in the games), is fantasy, and shouldn't be classified as Science Fiction - as Wolfe described it Science Fantasy. But the general public and media don't care about that distinction.
As Harlan then give as an example - explosions in space. There should be no noise, but the GP expects there to be a noise, (and if you ever try telling anyone that, you are deemed as a spoil sport).
I expect that since most of these guys have an interest in science, they want/hope the public could be educated about these things along the way.
_Alien_ was fundamentally a chainsaw-horror movie; it wasn't political or art-house by any stretch. It just happened to be a horror film that used a very good SF setting, and I think what Asimov (who was strictly a concept writer) was getting at, poorly, was that the story could be reset into another genre without significant changes (say, as a monster from the deep on a submarine: in fact _Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea_ did essentially that, 20 years earlier), because it was an iconic horror story. It just happens to fit well in a SF setting.
What he misses is that sometimes setting makes the story, because often readers just want to _be somewhere else_ . The more ironic because most of Asimov's own juveniles are just standard mysteries -- set in space.
The use of Alien as an example of the paucity of the misunderstanding of SF by filmmakers has been proven as incorrect, but this interview was conducted at another time. It remains invaluable!
Why is it incorrect? There's no science in it. It's a horror film, a very good horror film and a Dystopian fantasy at that. It's definitely more than just a shallow Hollywood blockbuster (the same can't be said for any other film in the series) but it's not science fiction.
+Kyle Whitehead It absolutley is. Its cyberpunk to be precise. The dystopia it preaents is the acience fiction part of it.
"We don't drink, we don't use dope, we don't have homosexual relationships." Ahhh, 1982, it was a different time.
Sounds awful.
a magical time.
Sounds like a slow night.
I think he said some along the lines of "what else is there to write about" at the end there (that is, were boring without our science-fiction). And no, your not a liberal if you have preventing people from speaking freely and saying it like it is, Liberal = freedom.
I think he was referring to the three of them, not everybody in general. There were already many gay and lesbian writers operating at the time
1982 ... but looks like it was filmed in 1962.
Why was this so short?
:(
so much to get from this. Authors write to put food on the table. They write for an audience that will read their stuff. So it has to be good to read...or they starve. These three writers write for different audiences in general (although I enjoy all three). SF is not meant to be predictive...it is speculative...based on the original premise of "what if..." If the blind watchmaker makes a watch that works it is akin to an infinite number of monkeys writing Shakespeare. End result? All three are great writers, with misgivings (some mild and some furious) about where they fit into the history of that much abused word...literature. They have opinions and they are worth listening to.
In a hundred years all three will still be read. Ask yourself if Dan Brown will be...
Off topic: At least one of the hosts had a few evening caps before his night cap :)
+Alien Weirdo Studs Terkel, not Spuds MacKenzie, was the original party animal.
And he lived to be about 90!