BBC7’s the 7th Dimension is re-airing a classic and relatively famous SF story from Harlan Ellison over the next two Sundays. Soldier, originally published in 1957 under the title Soldier Of The Future this is a time travel tale. Not as well known is that Ellison was drafted into the U.S. Army that same year and was trained as an Army Ranger. After leaving the military Ellison later adapted his story for a 1964 episode of the original The Outer Limits, and still later it was adapted, in a completely unauthorized but brilliant 1984 SF film, The Terminator.
Soldier
By Harlan Ellison; Read by John Sharian
2 half-hour segments – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
BROADCASTER: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
BROADCAST: Sunday at 6:30pm and 12:30am U.K. Time
“Set a thousand years into the future, Earth has become a nightmare of high-tech battlefields where few survive. From this world, soldier Qarlo is accidentally teleported back to the U.S. city streets of 1964 – to warn the human race of its capacity for self-destruction.”
Both parts will be available via the Listen Again service for six days after each broadcast.
Harlan Ellison was never a US Army Ranger. His lies and exaggerations about his lackluster military service (peacetime conscript who served two years) have only grown more ludicrous over the years. As of 2004 he was claiming not only to have been a Ranger, but to have been sent to Ranger training after he knocked an officer unconscious with a single punch.
In the real US Army, Private H Ellison would have been tried by court-martial and then sentenced to at least ten years confinement, followed by a dishonourable discharge.
Ellison is a pathological liar.