Review: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison

May 27th was Ellison's birthday. He passed on June 27, 2018, Los Angeles, CA

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman 

by Harlan Ellison 

Open Road Integrated Media 

Sci Fi & Fantasy

Harlan Ellison has been my go-to writer whenever I'm down and the writer's-block blues bang their drums, it's Ellison, the mythic man, the legend with a frenetic pen. His quill vivisects your heads and dribbles in his ink.  Even when he's bad, he's good.

If you haven't tried him, this is a perfect sampler. It opens with a short essay, hits with the main event story--winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Prometheus awards and reprinted more the two dozen times--and closes with a personal reflection.

The tales opens with the middle, rewinds to the beginning, and then closes at the open end. Even though he tells you what he'll do, it still comes as something of a surprise. Harlequin is plaguing the city of the future. He's upsetting the Tictockman, who has to see that everything starts and end on time. If not, he takes those lost minutes off the end of your life. Harlequin, meanwhile, distracts shoppers and construction workers and average citizens who are trying to get their work done on time by shouting at them through megaphones and distributing jelly beans--lots of jelly beans (which is never explained, but oh well. Ellison warned us).

Ellison's prose sizzles. It crackles and pops.

Here's an excerpt from the closing essay:

"When you come into my bedroom, you see the bed up on a square box platform covered with deep pile carpeting. It's in bright colors, because I like bright colors. Now, there's good solid, rational reason why the bed is up there like that. Some day I'll tell you why; it's a personal reason; in the nature of killing evil shadows. But that isn't important, right here. What is important is the attitude of people who see that bed for the first time. Some snicker and call it an altar. Others frown in disapproval and call it a pedestal, or a Playboy bed. It's none of those. It's very functional, and serves an emotional purpose that is none of their business, but Lord, how quick they are to label it the way they see it, and to lay their value-judgment on it and me."

The Tictockmen have very good reasons for their value-judgments.

Some of you are wondering, why do we need to hear about Ellison again? Why do we need to hear about Ellison again?

Because there's always a new generation that hasn't heard of him, and there's always a new, vocal group in every political faction that wants to strangle any opposition, authoritarian-style. "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman may not be the cure, but it may flush a few more harlequins out from their bunkers.

Of course, if you're the Tictockman, you may not want to read this story.