โAnother of this wonderful womanโs wonderful sayings (I told youโI got a million of โem; donโt make me prove it) was โMilk always takes the flavor of whatโs next to it in the icebox.โ Not a very useful saying, you might think, but I suspect itโs not only the reason Iโm writing this introduction, but the reason Iโm writing it the way Iโm writing it.
Does it sound like Harlan wrote it?
It does?
Thatโs because I just finished the admirable book which follows. For the last four days I have been, so to speak, sitting next to Harlan in the icebox. I am not copying his style; nothing as low as that. I have, rather, taken a brief impression of his style, the way that, when we were kids, we used to be able to take a brief impression of Beetle Bailey or Blondie from the Sunday funnies with a piece of Silly Putty (headline in the New York Times Book Review: KING OFFERS EERILY APT METAPHOR FOR HIS OWN MIND!!).โ
โ Stephen King, from his introduction to Harlan Ellisonโs Stalking the Nightmare