He was one of the greats but had a very dark side that sometimes surfaced, like holding his friends at gunpoint in the late 50s when he lost a bet. He matured enormously in later years I'm sure but sometimes that dark side re-surfaced. A non-fan once wrote him a flippant one sentence comment about his short physical stature, so he tracked her down and terrorized her in a phone call. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream came from that same dark place, I'm sure, and it is absolutely brilliant and seminal. It was probably the first thing I read from him in the mid-70s, and it was impossible not to become a fan after that. It seems to have been the same for so many others. If that was the first Ellison you read, you were hooked. R.I.P Mr Ellison