Harlan Ellison's Watching

Library Journal
Popular author, screen- and teleplay writer, and all-around bete noir , Ellison collects his 25-years' output of writing on film, from a 1951 high school piece to 1989 columns for Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ellison was never a reviewer, even when he was hired to be one, for the 1960s' Los Angeles Cinema magazine, so one doesn't get the critical analysis of a Kael, Canby, or Kauffmann. What one does get is Ellison, the world's youngest curmudgeon, entertainingly sounding off, sometimes on idiosyncratic tangents, on his likes and dislikes. A long introductory essay amusingly tells us how he got to be the way he is. This is an enjoyable, irascible collection, (surprisingly) fully indexed, and a welcome companion to Ellison's 1970 collected TV musings, The Glass Teat .-- David Bartholomew, NYPL