Harlan Ellison has announced that he is dying. Not, apparently, immediately, but he’s known it since early this year. He’s the Guest of Honor this weekend at MadCon, and says he may go out with a bang. He says, in a very Ellisonic manner: “This is gonna be the biggest fucking science-fiction convention ever, because no con has ever had a guest of honor drop dead while performing for the goddamn audience. The only comparison is the death of Patrick Troughton, at a Doctor Who convention. And I don’t think he was even onstage.”
In this article and interview in Wisconsin’s The Daily Page, Ellison announces that this weekend’s Guest of Honor appearance will be his last convention. Ellison told reporter Josh Wimmer “The truth of what’s going on here is that I’m dying. I’m like the Wicked Witch of the West—I’m melting. I began to sense it back in January. By that time, I had agreed to do the convention. And I said, ‘I can make it. I can make it.'”
In a wide-ranging discussion of his life and career (at the end of that article), Ellison warns future generations that his wife has explicit instructions: “the instant I die, she has to burn all the unfinished stories. And there may be a hundred unfinished stories in this house, maybe more than that.”
During his remarkable career, Ellison has amassed a slew of awards, as well as a passel of life-long friends, and some equally fervent enemies. His career awards include: the World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement, the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement, the SFWA Grand Master, the International Horror Guild Award Living Legend, and the World Horror Grandmaster. Individual awards include eight Hugos, three Nebulas, one World Fantasy Award, and five Bram Stoker Awards.