Harlan Ellison

“An enjoyable, irascible collection” of smart and sometimes-scathing film criticism from a famously candid author (Library Journal). Everyone’s a critic, especially in the digital age—but no one takes on the movies like multiple award-winning author Harlan Ellison. Renowned both for fiction (A Boy and His Dog) and pop-culture commentary (The Glass Teat), Ellison offers in this collection twenty-five years’ worth of essays and film criticism. It’s pure, raw, unapologetic opinion. Star Wars? “Luke Skywalker is a nerd and Darth Vader sucks runny eggs.” Big Trouble in Little China? “A cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives.” Despite working within the industry himself, Ellison never learned how to lie. So punches go unpulled, the impersonal becomes personal, and sometimes even the critics get critiqued, as he shares his views on Pauline Kael or Siskel and Ebert. Ultimately, it’s a wild journey through the cinematic landscape, touching on everything from Fellini to the Friday the 13th franchise. As Leonard Maltin writes in his preface, “I don’t know how valuable it is to learn Harlan Ellison’s opinion of this film or that, but I do know that reading an Ellison essay is gong to be provocative, infuriating, hilarious, or often a combination of the above. It is never time wasted. . . . Let me assure you, Harlan Ellison is never dull.”

From “one of the great . . . American short story writers,” comes a collection of dark fantastical fiction (The Washington Post). In the Locus Award–winning “Croatoan,” a man descends into the sewers of New York City to confront the detritus of his irresponsibility. An “Emissary from Hamelin” presents humanity with an ultimatum, or everyone on Earth will have a dear price to pay the piper. And in the title story—famously written by the author in the storefront window of a Santa Monica bookshop—Willis Kaw is convinced that he is an alien trapped inside an Earthman’s body, only to discover his suffering serves a purpose. Strange Wine includes these three stories and a dozen more unique visions from the writer the Washington Post hails as a “lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, and purveyor of pure horror and black comedy.” Includes: “Croatoan,” “Working With the Little People,” “Killing Bernstein,” “Mom,” “In Fear of K,” “Hitler Painted Roses,” “The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the Memory Has Gone Flat,” “From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet,” “Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time,” “Emissary from Hamelin,” “The New York Review of Bird Seeing,” “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Strange Wine,” “The Diagnosis of Dr. D’arqueAngel”

Masterpieces of myth and terror about modern gods from technology to drugs to materialism—“fantasy at its most bizarre and unsettling” (The New York Times). As Earth approaches Armageddon, a man embarks on a quest to confront God in the Hugo Award–winning novelette, “The Deathbird.” In New York City, a brutal act of violence summons a malevolent spirit and a growing congregation of desensitized worshippers in “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” an Edgar Award winner influenced by the real-life murder of Queens resident Kitty Genovese in 1964. In “Paingod,” the deity tasked with inflicting pain and suffering on every living being in the universe questions the purpose of its cruel existence. Deathbird Stories collects these and sixteen more provocative tales exploring the futility of faith in a faithless world. A legendary author of speculative fiction whose best-known works include A Boy and His Dog and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream—and whose major awards and nominations number in the dozens, Harlan Ellison strips away convention and hypocrisy and lays bare the human condition in modern society as ancient gods fade and new deities rise to appease the masses—gods of technology, drugs, gambling, materialism—that are as insubstantial as the beliefs of those who venerate them. In addition to his Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Edgar, and other awards, Ellison was called “one of the great living American short story writers” by the Washington Post—and this collection makes it clear why he has earned such an extraordinary assortment of accolades. Stories include: “Introduction: Oblations at Alien Altars” “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” “Along the Scenic Route” “On the Downhill Side” “O Ye of Little Faith” “Neon” “Basilisk” “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” “Corpse” “Shattered Like a Glass Goblin” “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer” “The Face of Helene Bournouw” “Bleeding Stones” “At the Mouse Circus” “The Place with No Name” “Paingod” “Ernest and the Machine God” “Rock God” “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W” “The Deathbird”

Tales of terror and wonder from a winner of the Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, Bram Stoker, and many other awards. Originally published in 1962 and updated in later decades with a new introduction, Ellison Wonderland contains sixteen masterful stories from the author’s early career. This collection shows a vibrant young writer with a wide‐ranging imagination, ferocious creative energy, devastating wit, and an eye for the wonderful and terrifying and tragic. Among the gems are “All the Sounds of Fear,” “The Sky Is Burning,” “The Very Last Day of a Good Woman,” and “In Lonely Lands.” Though they stand tall on their own merits, they also point the way to the sublime stories that followed soon after and continue to come even now, more than fifty years later.

Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best short story collection, this volume by one of the most acclaimed authors of the 20th century takes an intense look at how the specter of death haunts everyday life.

"Get it straight right now: these aren't kids playing games of war. They mean business. They are junior-grade killers and public enemies one through five thousand..." In Rusty Santoro's neighborhood, the kids carry knives, chains, bricks. Broken glass. And when they fight, they fight dirty, leaving the streets littered with the bodies of the injured and the dead. Rusty wants out - but you can't just walk away from a New York street gang. And his decision may leave his family to pay a terrible price. First published more than half a century ago and inspired by the author's real-life experience going undercover inside a street gang, Web of the City was Harlan Ellison's first novel and marked the long-form debut of one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, and controversial voices of 20th century letters. Appearing here for the first time together with three thematically related short stories Ellison wrote for the pulp magazines of the 1950s, Web of the City offers both a snapshot of a lost era and a portrait of violence and grief as timely as today's most brutal headlines.