(blocked) asks:
> PMFJI, but how *is* Harlan?

I sent your note to Harlan, and today received this message in
return. Any typos that may have crept in here are my responsibility.

jms

*****

2 October 1996 TO: Joe Straczynski FROM: Harlan Ellison Re: Posting on
B5 General topic pursuant to your fax of 1 October 96

Joe: Here's the response we discussed via telecon this morning. If
you would post it for me, I'd be appreciative. - he

Dear Mary Cree:

As you likely know, I am--how shall I happily put
this?--"netless in Gaza." That is to say, Joe Straczynski is posting
this for me. Had I your home address, I would have hand-typed an
actual letter, and signed it with one of my lovely fountain pens, and
mailed it directly to you; and you'd have had a small, but for-real,
artifact. Rather than this nebulous electronic simulacrum, sans human
signature...the traditional mark of establishing that the message comes
from the heart of the sender.

Here's the long and the short of it: I have waited thirty and
more years for your letter. I cannot, in any human tongue, express my
gratitude for your comments and encomia.

I hint, in the introductory essay to CITY ON THE EDGE OF
FOREVER, at the circumstances that conspired to jostle, prod, and
chivvy me to the point of writing the book. Delineating those
circumstances would take yet *another* 45,000 word essay. I choose to
give *that* odious chore a regal pass.

Insofar as the reality of writing the long introductory
material to CITY is concerned, I was an *extremely* reluctant virgin
brought to that nuptial bed. Had I let the whole idea go a-bornilng, I
would probably have been just as content...and continued to live with
that ugly little feral hatred gnawing at my composure for the remaining
years of my life. But the forces massed, and I wrote the book, and now
it's out there doing incredibly well (much to my suprirse), and I guess
it's all worth it. Because, in some measure, I received your note.

I never realized, till I got into the writing of CITY, just how
angry I was, nor even how deeply I'd been hurt by what happened. The
writing was like crawling across the most exhausting Gobi Altai one
could imagine, only to be offered, at the oasis, not a glass of
Perrier, but a large peanut butter sandwich. Nonetheless, I did it,
and it was done, and out there-- twice-- and I could cease ruminating
on what a crappy chapter it had been in my carer.

I didn't realize I was waiting for your letter. That I'd
written the book *just to get your letter*. But now I know.

Thank you, every so much. Respectfully,