Ellison Wonderland

by Harlan Ellison

Bluejay, 1984. Trade paperback. First published in 1962, this is a collection of the best of Ellison's early work. Contains a new introduction ("The Man On the Mushroom") written for this edition, and these "Commuter's Problem" (1957); "Do-It-Yourself" (1961, with Joe L. Hensley); "The Silver Corridor" (1956); "All the Sounds of Fear" (1962); "Gnomebody" (1956); "The Sky Is Burning" (1958); "Mealtime" (1958); "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman" (1958); "Battlefield" (1958); "Deal from the Bottom" (1960); "The Wind Beyond the Mountains" (1957); "Back to the Drawing Boards" (1958); "Nothing for My Noon Meal" (1958); "Hadj" (1956); "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (1956); "In Lonely Lands" (1959).

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Collections, Audiobook

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Harlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.

His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.

Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Ellison Wonderland - sixteen Harlan Ellison short stories preceded by an impassioned Introduction wherein Harlan shares his struggles prior to his arrival in Hollywood in 1962. Our author wants to emphasize one fact: his Wonderland is one of imagination - he doesn't need any drugs to propel him or inspire him to write - his overactive imagination provides all the juice he needs.

Harlan, we believe you! Such a vivid, extraordinary imagination, as these short stories will show. And to share a sampling of Harlan's imagination in action, here's my review of two of my favorite stories from this collection:

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARDS
"Finally, Leon Packett stumbled upon the secret of the perfect, self-contained tri-vid camera, operating off a minute force-bead generator; and in his warped way, he struck instantly to the truth of the problem - that the only camera that could penetrate to those inner niches of the universe that the eye of man demanded to glimpse, was a man himself.

How completely simple it was. The only gatherer of facts as seen by the eyes of a man . . . were the eyes of a man. But since no man would volunteer to have his head sliced open, his brains scooped out, and a tri-vid camera inserted, Leon Packett invented Walkaway."

The above quote is taken from the first page of Back To the Drawing Boards, a tale of a highly unique, highly intelligent robot named Walkaway.

Harlan has written one of the most provocative, insightful, imaginative stories about a robot you'll ever read. And let's not forget the robot's creator, an eccentric gent who is anti-authoritarian in the extreme.

We're well to keep in mind Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" formulated in 1942:

First Law - A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law - A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So, the question we must ask: Does Leon Packett, creator of Walkaway, violate Isaac Asimov's three laws? Let me offer a hint: Harlan constructs his tale with such mastery, the answer to this pressing, critical question is debatable.

Another philosophic conundrum to roll around in your mind: how human-like is Walkaway? For as Harlan writes:

"He (Leon Packett) has freed the robot's soul completely. Not only legally, but in actuality. Walkaway felt great sadness. There has been only one other who knew his inner feelings. That had been Leon Packett. There had been empathy between them. The man a bit mad, the robot a bit man."

Lastly, readers are treated to yet again another WOW!!! - Back To The Drawing Boards features Harlan's knockout punch, an unforgettable wallop: the tale's short, concluding sentence. How powerful is Harlan's smacker? For each reader to discover.



ALL THE SOUNDS OF FEAR
Each of the sixteen short stories collected here starts off with a preface, that is, a paragraph where Harlan shares some of the background for writing the story we're about to read - for example: an idea he was kicking around in his head or situation he observed or something that actually happened to him, either out in the world or in his own dreams or nightmares. Here's a snip from Harlan's intro for this 1962 tale:

"What kind of a culture are we breeding around us? A society in which everyone tries to be average, right on the norm, the common denominator, the median, the great leveler. College kids demonstrating a callow conservatism that urges them not to stick their heads above the crowd, not to be noticed....I fear for the safety of my country and its people from this creeping paralysis of ego."

As any reader knows who is familiar with Harlan's writing, he isn't one to mess around with a lukewarm beginning to his story. No, no, a thousand times no!! Harlan wants to thrust a reader into the middle of the world he's creating right from the first lines, as per this tale's opening:

""Give me some light!"
Cry: tormented, half-moan, half-chant, cast out against a whispering darkness; a man wound in white, arms upflung to roistering shadows, sooty sockets where eyes had been, pleading, demanding, anger and hopelessness, anguish from the soul into the world. He stumbled, a step, two, faltering, weak, the man returned to the child, trying to find some exit from the washing sea of darkness in which he trembled."

All the Sounds of Fear, a tale of intensity, of anguish, a tale that will give you, the reader, the distinct feeling storyteller Harlan Ellison grabs your heart, holds it in his grip and then starts to squeeze.

We follow the theatrical career of Richard Becker beginning at age twenty-two when Richard takes on the part of paranoid beggar. Prior to the play hitting Broadway, Richard Becker lived for six straight weeks as a bum on the skids down on the streets of the Bowery. In other words, the young man, via the actor's method developed by Stanislavski, surrendered his own identity to become, heart and soul, the part he was to play. The theater critics raved - Richard Becker wasn't just a method actor; Richard Becker was the method. Astonishing achievement.

As so it went for Richard Becker, from Broadway play to Broadway play, forever the supremely accomplished man up on stage, becoming the lead character for an appreciative audience.

You'll have to read this humdinger for yourself to see, step by step, the ways in which Harlan links Richard Becker's acting with his introductory remarks about an entire American society filled with men and women conforming to a socially designated role. Allow me to conclude with one telling direct quote in the form of a doctor's report from a well-known New York mental hospital:

"To a man like Richard Becker, the world was very important. He was very much a man of his times; he had no real personality of his own, with the exception of that one overwhelming faculty and need to reflect the world around him. He was an actor in the purest sense of the word. The world gave him his personality, his attitudes, his façade and his reason for existence. Take those away from him, clap him up in a padded cell - as we were forced to do - and he begins to lose touch with reality."

Again, these are just two of sixteen stories. Harlan Ellison - one of the most powerful storytellers in America.


Harlan Ellison, 1934-2018

[Karl]

This copy is housed in a slip case and does not contain the additional chapbook and is not signed.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Ellison’s early shorts. It is mostly science fiction but also a little humor, a little horror, and a whole lot of Wow. It would have been 5 stars but my edition had a 100+ page introduction, roughly one third of the book, that was essentially Ellison tooting his own horn over and over and over.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A definite mixed bag of stories from early in Harlan Ellison's career to the early-'60s (when the book was originally published), "Ellison Wonderland" is vintage Ellison. The stories range from absolutely silly and nonsensical ("Gnomebody") to beautiful and perfect exemplars of great science fiction ("In Lonely Lands"). All of them also give a glimpse into Ellison's worldview. Ellison was a social justice warrior long before it was "cool", but he often hid his views behind outrageous humor or cynical and angry diatribes against "the System/the Man". He still remains one of my---if not the top---favorite writers of all time.

[Gary K Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of early Harlan Ellison’s short stories written in the late 50s and early 60s - first released in 1962. Apparently this is a popular enough collection to warrant re-releasing several times... 1974, 1979, 1984, 2015. Each with their own introduction... all of which included in this release. Additionally there was an additional section by J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 - Ellison was creative consultant on that show - and this is one of my favorite shows of all time) and one by Josh Olsen... who has a very cool story involving how Harlan inspired him to become a writer.

All combined this is an exceptionally long set of intros... this is promoted as a 45,000 word memoir. Which if you don’t skip over this part you will find his official memoir was intended to be called ‘Working Without a Net’. I looked this up and it was listed as released after his death - Harlan passed away in 2018 - but I can’t seem to find it anywhere so that may have been a planned release. In any case this set of introductions, essays, letters, and rants (Harlan hates the word screed as you will see) give you a pretty good idea of what Harlan is all about... or at a minimum an overview of his cantankerous nature. This wasn’t in the book, but a quote attributed to him is
“The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity”.
- yeah... I can see that coming from him 😀. You will learn about his disdain for being asked to write intros for books, his similar anger at editors, why not to use the aforementioned word ‘screed’, an interesting story about rat sculptures, and his encounter with Whitey Bolger... among other stories. You can skip over all of this, but I didn’t- I thought it was interesting.

Oh yeah, the stories 😀. Being that there are 16 stories spread across a scant 200 pages I can’t say too much about each one w/o giving things away. None of them are overly complex - most have a simple theme. This includes an early version of a Star Trek holodeck, being careful what you wish for, the insanity of war, several on the assumed superiority of mankind w/r to interstellar visitors, artificial intelligence, and ill advised deals with devils. Overall the stories were hit or miss for me. If I read this in 1962 I think they would have been more ‘hits’, but alas I wasn’t around then. I guess the good news is that if you come across a story you don’t like... they are all pretty short so before you know it you will be in the next story.

Here are my relative ratings for each... probably average out to about a 4 which was my GR rating. Despite the short lengths which prevented much character development... I’m pretty sure many of the stories will stick with me for some time. Among these are The Silver Corridor, Nothing for My Noon Meal, Mealtime, Hadj, and (although I only gave this one 4 stars) The Wind Beyond the Mountains (this one’s quite sad)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Commuter's Problem
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Do-it-yourself
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Silver Corridor
⭐️⭐️⭐️ All the Sounds of Fear
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Gnomebody
⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Sky is Burning
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mealtime
⭐️⭐️ The Very Last Day of a Good Woman
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Battlefield
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Deal from the Bottom
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Wind Beyond the Mountains
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Back to the Drawing Boards
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Nothing for My Noon Meal
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hadj
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rain, Rain, Go Away
⭐️⭐️⭐️ In Lonely Lands

I happen to have the 1974 printing... but the original cover - inspiring the ‘Man on the Mushroom’ section - to me is the best cover art. Before reading this that cover didn’t make much sense... and I would have suspected it was inspired by eating certain mushrooms (either way it may have I’m guessing 🍄 😀). After reading the book the characters under the mushroom actually make sense. Pretty cool actually.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read quite a bit of Harlan Ellison during the 1970s, but not this. It is an early collection of his short stories, each originally published from 1956 to 1962. The edition I read begins with a introduction added by him in 1974 concerning how important the income from this publication was, and that his former publisher was a human monster. After reading lots of Ellison’s introductions, I have come to realize that they are often self-congratulatory and sometimes contain attacks on those who have been critical of him. Feel free to skip them. Below are some of my thoughts on each of the included short stories, most of which are in the style of 1950s and early 1960s science fiction, that some younger readers may now associate with Philip K. Dick. Except that Ellison, when he rises to it, is the better writer. In my opinion, the best short works in the collection are “All The Sounds of Fear” and “Nothing for my Noon Meal”. Many of the others are non-memorable.

I read the 1974 paperback edition. There may be some content differences between editions.

“Commuter’s Problem” – A middle management suburban homeowner commuter, exactly the kind of person Harlan Ellison typically despises, takes a wrong turn at the subway station. He learns the reason why his new neighbor seems so strange. Weiler’s ultimate fate could have been a good enough ending, but Ellison put in an extra twist with his attitude towards that fate. ****

“Do-It-Yourself” – What if a wife ordered a do-it-yourself kit that promised to help her murder her husband undetected? Read the story and find out. Maybe I’ve read too many of these kind of stories, but I saw the final irony coming long before it happened. ***

“The Silver Corridor” – A duel in a simulated universe between the creative spirit of two conflicted men. ***

“All The Sounds of Fear” – As the parts that an actor has played are peeled back, what remains at the center? This story, originally published in Saint Detective Magazine (French and English) in 1962, is a precursor of the psycho-social themes that would bring Ellison fame as a great writer. *****

“Gnomebody” – A smart-ass kid meets a smart-ass gnome, who grants him a wish. Be careful what you with for. **

“The Sky Is Burning” – Aliens are coming to Earth in order to kill themselves. Existence is futile. ***

“Mealtime” – Humankind’s true insignificance is revealed. **

“The Very Last Day of a Good Woman” – The end of the world is coming, and Arthur is still a virgin. I know women are supposed to represent something else here, but honestly this is juvenile. *

“Battlefield” – War has been sanitized and depersonalized, using the Moon as battlefield. **

“Deal from the Bottom” – Death row inmate makes a deal with a hipster devil. Shaggy dog story. **

“The Wind Beyond the Mountains” – A Mapping Command ship lands on a new planet. Home is where the heart is; not all intelligent life is as driven to explore and discover as humanity is. ****

“Back to the Drawing Boards” – An eccentric inventor builds a unique robot, and includes some of his own ambitions. He refuses to allow that to be redesigned out, before it is sent on an interstellar mission. Upon its return that difference comes into play. This is not an Asimov robot! ***

“Nothing for My Noon Meal” – Originally published in Nebula Science Fiction Magazine, 1958. Marooned on a deserted planet, orbited by his wife who was killed getting there, a man has physically adapted his body to survival. What would it be like for him if rescue is feasible? His emotional landscape is at the center of this work. *****

“Hadj” – Humanity overestimates its importance in the universe. The reference to a pilgrimage to Mecca seems like a poor fit for events of the story. **

“Rain, rain, go away” – Rain, rain, go away. Come back on another day. The problem is that eventually another day arrives. ***

“In Lonely Lands” – A old spacefarer returns to Mars to finish his life. **

[Jenia Sukhan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was turned on to Ellison through the intriguing documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth, which I followed up with the weirdly imaginative short I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It was unconventional and murky and raw, and I wanted more.

Ellison Wonderland wasn't it. The most interesting section of the 1974 re-edition is Ellison's autobiographical introduction, wherein he admits that even as of twenty-eight years of age, after many of these stories were already complete, Ellison "had never become an adult." Unfortunately, I did not take this for the warning that it was.

Although Ellison's protagonists are already shaping up to be neurotic anti-heroes drawn more from reality than the classics of science fiction, he struggles visibly with melding the mundane with the fantastic. Does he want to explore the everyday, as the opening "Commuter's Problem" suggests, or stretch the limits of his imagination, as in "Deal From the Bottom"? Neither form commits, and the shorts turn into glorified set-ups to gimmick payoffs that succeed less often than they don't. Ellison works for countless pages to convince us that these people matter, that they have meaningful and relateable crises apart from intergalactic warfare, but hastily writes them off with a surreal punchline.

The worst is "Gnomebody," one of two be-careful-what-you-wish-for cautionary tales in this collection, the entire point of which is to get to a resolution that neither shocks nor entertains. A boy who wished to be fast is turned into a Centaur! The End.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a time when this resolution seemed competent, never mind compelling.

Easily the best of the bunch is "All the Sounds of Fear," the third short in this line-up of sixteen, which tells of the rise and fall of a great actor. Until the conclusion, it deftly sidesteps the collection's Achilles heel. The trick? The story has no science-fiction, no fantasy, and none of the over-the-top melodrama that plagues "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman" and "Nothing for My Noon Meal." Even this effort is sabotaged, however, by a last-minute turn to the bizarre, which undermines the immediacy and necessity of all that came before.

It's an understandable problem that writers of short fiction often feel the need to "get to the point." This despite the short's unmatched ability to create atmosphere in a way that novel-length works, whose every scene must be faithful to a greater whole, can't always afford to do. But the point, then, must be truly and consistently worth getting to. Those of Ellison Wonderland aren't.

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE.

These are some of Ellison’s earliest genre short stories, mostly science fiction or science fiction adjacent. Ellison had a mastery of the English language and really knew how to craft a short story. The latest edition of this book has a 45,000 word intro, I listened to the audiobook and it was 6 hours long and so worth it. The intro gave me a lot of context on Ellison as a person and what he was trying to do in his writing.

Some of my favorite stories were: The Silver Corridor, Nothing for My Noon Meal, Do-it-Yourself, The Sky is Burning (especially Ellison’s reading of this one) and Commuter’s Problem.

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the Kindle edition of this book and also listened to the audible audiobook, as an experiment to see if Ellison's stories come across better verbally or on the written page.

DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU (New Author's Introduction)

The audiobook contains a new 40,000 word introduction from the author which takes 6 of the 13-hour runtime. It is not included in the Kindle version, as it was written expressly for a pricey limited-edition hardback release.

The essay is vintage Ellison: interesting but overlong, full of stories, jokes, and digressions. It is highlighted by a passionate ramble on the state of the publishing industry. He decries the longstanding practice of asking authors to write blurbs and introductions to their friends' books without payment. He unleashes on selfish fans with unrealistic demands. He relates decades-old anecdotes of greedy publishers. He slams amateur bloggers and online book reviewers who cannot understand the subtleties of his work because they lack grounding in the history of the sci-fi genre.

Along the way, Ellison holds court on other topics as well: stem cell research, his peace plan for the Middle East, how he met Whitey Bulger at a dinner party, and why he never wrote a sequel to any of his stories.

A couple of magazine interviews, a savage review of Susannah Clark's debut novel, and the entire short story "He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes" are also included in this compendium.

COMMUTER'S PROBLEM--A man gets on the wrong train to work. Instead of New York, he winds up on a planet sixty million light years away. Earth has become a thriving suburb for alien commuters in this imaginative tale of whimsy.

DO–IT–YOURSELF--Ellison sends up the DIY fad in this cautionary comedy about a woman who orders a do-it-yourself murder kit but keeps finding ways to screw up the instructions.

THE SILVER CORRIDOR-- Two intellectual titans of economic policy duel each other in a holodeck over their competing ideologies. The artificial environment changes in response to each combatant’s level of confidence. The story is highly imaginative and ends with a typical Ellisonian insight. Both men eventually realize they are equally entrenched in their worldviews and, just as they make tentative admissions they could move towards finding a compromise, they are both instantly destroyed. In Harlan’s view, a weakening of conviction equates to vulnerability.

ALL THE SOUNDS OF FEAR--A method actor goes too far while preparing for the role of a murderer: he kills his girlfriend. Over the next several months in a psychiatric hospital, he regresses backwards through every character he ever played. When I read this story on the printed page, I thought it had a strong premise but failed to reach a meaningful climax. It benefited greatly from Harlan’s voice performance in the audio book; his voice brought home the tragedy of the character to me, in a way his words on paper could not.

GNOMEBODY--Features an engaging adolescent character who chances upon a gnome that can grant wishes. In this early short story, Ellison writes with a strong voice but does not seem to know quite what to do with it. (In audio, the story benefits from an expressive reader, but nothing can salvage its lack of an ending.)

THE SKY IS BURNING--An astronomer makes first contact. This story never fails to excite my imagination, in print or audio. I love that haunting opening image of god-like aliens falling from a lemon sky in a hail of suicidal fire. (Ellison gives a spirited reading of his own work in the audiobook. Highly recommended.)

MEALTIME--Three explorers in deep space encounter a silver planet that is a living, sentient, and very hungry being.

THE VERY LAST DAY OF A GOOD WOMAN--Arthur Fulbright knows the world is going to end in two weeks on a Thursday afternoon, and he wants to spend his last hours enjoying the comforts of a woman. Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon" is still my favorite finding-love-on-the-day-the-world-ends story, but I give props to Ellison for inventing this theme. In fact, I am also surprised the 2011 Steve Carell movie "Seeking A Friend for the End of the World" did not cite this story as its inspiration.

BATTLEFIELD--The moon has been turned into a large battlefield where the nations of Earth wage violent endless wars against each other. Soldiers commute to war every week, but spend their weekends with their families back home. This is an early antiwar piece that is not all that effective; the battle scenes are monotonous and over the top.

DEAL FROM THE BOTTOM--A death row inmate makes a deal with the devil to save his life. This is one of those Ellison stories that is really a long buildup to a joke. Skip it. It is not worth reading or listening to in any format.

THE WIND BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS--Humans capture a telepathic animal from another world that is inextricably bound to its home world. This story explores the competing desires of the human heart--the relentless drive to explore versus the longing for rest and home.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARDS--An eccentric inventor allows the governments of earth to use his android to explore the outer reaches of space, but there is a catch. He has the android declared a human citizen. When the android returns several hundred years later, it has amassed from its wages a fortune large enough to rule the world. (Note: This story only appears in post-1974 editions of this book. It replaced "Are You Listening?")

ARE YOU LISTENING (AKA THE FORCES THAT CRUSH)--A milquetoast man wakes up one morning to discover he is completely invisible to everyone around him: a parable of the dangers of conformity and timidity. (Note: This story only appears in pre-1974 editions of the book. It was replaced by "Back to the Drawing Boards". It is included in the audiobook but not the kindle edition.)

NOTHING FOR MY NOON MEAL--An astronaut is stranded on an arid planet named Hell after his wife was killed--and his ship permanently disabled--in a collision. Before long, the man realizes he is suffering the effects of rapid genetic mutations delivered through the planet's unique flora. This is a strong story, more in the traditional vein of a Heinlein or Asimov story than usual. Like many stories in this collection, it benefits from a strong performance on the audiobook.

HADJ--Ellison claims in his introduction this story is poking fun at true believers in an Almighty Power. In reality, however, this story is as Calvinist as it gets. Humanity makes first contact with God--or at least aliens so powerful they might as well be gods--and yet in their human pride and stubbornness, they insist on being accepted by the Almighty as equals.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY--An insubstantial early story centered on the premise that one man can postpone the rain with a childhood rhyme. (It benefits from a decent audio performance that emphasizes the main character's humorous whining nature.)

IN LONELY LANDS--An old dying man is befriended by a Martian, who agrees to accompany him in his death passage. Depending on my mood, I might regard this story as maudlin, but I read it a few days after Harlan Ellison's passing, and instead I found it a moving meditation on friendship and the desire not to face mortality alone.

The audiobook also includes a forward by J. Michael Straczynski and an afterword by Josh Olson.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good early collection of Ellison's best genre fiction, mostly from the late '50s. The stories come from the time when Ellison was moving from magazine work and setting his sights on a more lucrative and literary career. There's an unchecked enthusiasm and good humor here that came to the fore less and less frequently in the mid-60's and on into the most famous period of his career. The stories are, for the most part, well-written and quite entertaining and show signs of his later award-winning works. This book, I believe, has gone through more iterations than any of his others, but it's the stories that count and they remain constant.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

What kind of a culture are we breeding around us? A society in which everyone tries to be average, right on the norm, the common denominator, the median, the great leveler. College kids demonstrating a callow conservatism that urges them not to stick their heads above the crowd, not to be noticed. Political candidates so bland they must of necessity be faceless to gain identification with their equally faceless constituents. A sameness in thinking, in demeanor, in dress, in goals, in desires. More than the obvious threats of cobalt bombs, World Communism, famine, plague, pestilence or the insidious ennui of Barry Manilow, I fear for the safety of my country and its people from this creeping paralysis of the ego.
-- from the introduction to "All the Sounds of Fear"

As they came into the annex, through the heavy glass-portaled door, he heard the scream for the first time.
In that scream, in that tormented, pleading, demanding and hopelessly lost tremor there were all the sounds of fear he had ever heard. In that voice he heard even his own voice, his own soul, crying out for something.
For an unnamable something, as the scream came again.
"Give me some light!"
Another world, another voice, another life. Some evil and empty beseeching from a corner of a dust-strewn universe. Hanging there timelessly, vibrant in colorless agony. A million tired and blind stolen voices all wrapped into that one howl, all the eternal sadnesses and losses and pains ever known to man. It was all there, as the good in the world was sliced open and left to bleed its golden fluid away in the dirt. It was a lone animal being eaten by a bird of prey. It was a hundred children crushed beneath iron treads. It was one good man with his entrails in his blood-soaked hands. It was the soul and the pain and the very vital fiber of life, draining away, without light, without hope, without succor.
-- "All the Sounds of Fear"

[Florence Salmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a dude with five weed smoking girlfriends, he sure does write women like he's never had a conversation with one before.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I'd like Ellison in person, but he has a fantastic imagination & a way of viewing life that is certainly unique. Excellent read.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

review coming soon at www.fantasyliterature.com

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

More top-notch short stories by Ellison.

[Shaana Niessen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My problem with short fiction of this kind is that there's no room for the world-building so essential to effective sci-fi/fantasy/dystopia. But this is Ellison's universe and he claims it with a style all his own. One that makes the landscape of each story recognizable even in its unique twistedness. As with all collections of stories, not every one was a winner for me but in this series there were no losers either. Every story was at least a solid 3 stars with the standout "The Sky is Burning" a perfect 5 stars. Thanks for this one to Livv.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy is the 1974 edition and for some reason it has managed to avoid being read since then. I am not a great fan of short stories but Ellison provides one of the exceptions to that feeling. Like an old Asimov collection I read recently I am astonished how relatively undated these stories are. I love his little introductions to each tale and I will retain a few images from these stories for quite a while.

[Lucy Batson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about as early as Ellison's work gets, and he still has prose style to burn in comparison with many of his peers at the time. This edition has a LENGTHY series of intros and stories from Ellison and was a lot of fun in audiobook format.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Luke Dylan Ramsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

C+/B-

I listened to this on audible. I think it was the 2014 version?

The intros are the closest we will get to an Ellison autobiography, I think, but they drag on and on and should’ve had like 20,000 words cut from them, if not just cut entirely.

Lot of people catch strays in this one: Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, fans who attend conventions and signings, and Susanna Clarke - they all get a bunch of shit talked about them.

A lot of time is spent on name dropping and dumb ass bragging. It’s a slog and rarely interesting. I did like all the stuff about Avram Davidson and how Avram wouldn’t even touch a German typewriter.

First story - commuter’s problem - B/B+
Solid story about another planet colonizing earth and using it as a sort of suburb from which their citizens commute to their home planet to work. I imagine the idea for this story came from someone saying something like NYC feels like a different planet in comparison to the suburbs, or the reverse.

There’s a lot to like, but there’s also a few plot holes, such as: why don’t the aliens just colonize random planets? How does the subway stuff work? if you can take the subway to the other planet accidentally, why doesn’t that happen more often? (Tourists, children, people not used to public transport)

I did like that the protagonist hates Earth and wants to start a new life on the alien planet. His dissatisfaction with his all too suburban life felt relatable and very of its time.

Second story - do it yourself C/C+

The reading of this story was a bit obnoxious. While I didn’t see the twist coming, I’m not 100% sure the twist made sense. If the husband had noticed his wife had the murder kit, why didn’t he do anything?

You can tell that Ellison had been married and divorced a bunch from this story. It’s a very 50s / early 60s story, very suburban and somewhat misogynist, even tho it’s written from a woman’s perspective.

I found the story somewhat obnoxious and kinda trifling and like I said, a bit too negative about women. I identified with the woman more than her husband but it’s the husband who comes out on top, which I didn’t like.

Third story - the silver corridor B+/A-

Some similarities with Zelazny’s The Dream Master and a couple stories from the Dangerous Visions series.

There are lots of twists and turns in this one. It’s hallucinatory and trippy and pretty well done. Def captures the feeling of the dreams State, how settings and other details will change seemingly at random and with no warning.

All The Sounds of Fear - Unknown

This made zero impression on me.

Gnomebody - A-/A

Monkey’s paw story about a ne’er do well encountering a gnome.
I really enjoyed this one. It’s a fantasy story, which is a bit unusual for Ellison. Definitely seems to channel the youthful angst that Ellison goes on about during the various introductions to these stories. It definitely would not be out of place in a collection or anthology of YA stories.
This story is short and sweet and the twist ending is foreseeable, but the specifics of the twist are not foreseeable.
Really tight and short and sweet, no wasted words.

The Sky Is Burning - B/B+

Kinda depressing and a little reminiscent of the 6th episode of Ahsoka. Some really cool visions of the future / aliens. Seems reminiscent of the biblical leviathan. The kinda thing that would be a vision or a dream in a story of mine.

Mealtime - unknown

This made zero impression on me.

The Very Last Day of A Good Woman - F/F

Um. A… dangerous vision for sure. Harlan Ellison the next incel God? The next Andrew Tate? Def metooable

About a guy who foresees the end of the world so sets out to try to get laid beforehand. He contemplates rape for a long time but settles on overpaying a hooker.

Yes officer, this story here. One of the worst pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. Super of its time.

Battlefield - B-/B

Pretty standard military sci fi story, tho it does seem to be a commentary on the pointless nature of a lot of military service. Some of the technology is pretty cool and a lot of the details are well done but overall it’s just not super memorable. It definitely seems outdated after the vietnam war, which was def not a leisurely good time or a war that was easily let go of when the soldiers got home.

Deal From The Bottom B-/B

Yet another Monkey’s Paw story. This one is pretty good, nothing too spectacular. The jargon and pop culture references really date the story, although I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing in this case.

I did think that the main character seemed way too weak and ineffectual to actually kill anyone, which is basically his only action of the whole story, the only thing he really does besides sit in jail.

The Wind Beyond The Mountains - B/B+
This one seems like it’s almost a Vietnam War allegory. It’s about a group of explorers who arrive on a new planet and kidnap a native to take the native back to earth. The native dies pretty quickly, as they miss home too much, like a prisoner of war despairing the further they get from their home land.

This story is more solid than spectacular. The introduction seems to imply that thinking home is where the heart is is some deep special insight, which is a laugh and a half.

Are you listening aka the forces that crush - B-/B

Story is about a man who one day finds he has turned invisible and inaudible. He tries to figure out what happened and desperately tries to prove he exists to other people until he finds 2 men in a similar situation, who explain things to him.

It’s not a bad story exactly but I didn’t like the explanation of why the guy disappeared. It felt a bit like conservative and misandrist. The story also features misogyny and a bit of sexual assault, and yet another cliche unhappy marriage where the woman is a caricature of the unfeeling and untrustworthy housewife, which is turning into a trope for this book.

That being said, the rating would be higher if the ending were better and more interesting.

Nothing For My Noon Meal - A-/A

A man and his wife, both space bums, get stranded on a small planet, the only one in its solar system. The wife dies and the man explores the planet, eventually finding a type of plant that causes him to mutate in a significant way: he can go longer without oxygen now and I think there are other differences too. The plant help provide him with oxygen.

He names the planet Hell, because of how barren and desolate it is. Eventually the planet is discovered by other human explorers and they try to take the guy home, but he refuses and wants to stay on the planet and nearby his dead wife. They agree that rather than bringing him home to earth to study his mutations, more explorers will come to hell.

I actually liked this one a lot. It’s the perfect length and there’s a nice sense of cosmic dread, plus I’m a sucker for stuff about people bumming around space, looking for some type of salvation. Like the other stories in this collection, the story does have a twist, and I liked the twist too.


Hadj - F/F

One of the dumbest and most inconsequential stories I’ve ever come across. The trope of the all powerful rich white guy is so overdone and such a dumb trope even if it wasn’t overdone. This story adds up to nothing and is dumb.


Rain, Rain, Go Away - C/C+

Omg you’ll never believe this… it’s yet another monkey’s paw story. This one is about an office worker who thinks the phrase rain rain go away come again another day every time it rains, then the rain stops a little bit after. Then at the end of the story all the rain that has been put off comes at once and floods NYC. Somehow the mc’s main problem at the end is the possibility that he will get laryngitis.

It’s a fairly inconsequential story that tries too hard to be cute. I could see it being popular at the time of its writing but it reads as dated and kinda silly (in a bad way). Not bad but not good either.

In Lonely Lands - D/D+

I think this one is about a guy living on Mars in a community of Martians. The Martians never get sad or something, but they are still good friends with the guy?

I didn’t get this one at all. It was dumb and simplistic.

Back To The Drawing Boards - B+/A-

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many reasons to read Harlan Ellison if you like science fiction or are considering writing science fiction. They are, in part:

1) You get to know what the fuss of the New Wave (science fiction wise) was all about
2) You get to know the in jokes other science fiction authors make about Ellison
3) You get to read some highly original and really weird shit (and I mean shit in the term drug addicts use "shit")



That being said, a whole book of Ellison stories can be just a bit much to take. So my advice is to go slow. Some of these stories are similar in tone or settings and all have the Harlan Ellison Attitude.



These are mostly stories from the 1960s such as "The Silver Corridor," "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman," and "Nothing for My Noon Meal." Almost all of the stories in here can be found in other anthologies (even other anthologies of Harlan Ellison stories).

Don't make the mistake I did of thinking, "Huh. If this stuff got published and got awards then I should submit my stuff right away to science fiction magazines/ezines." It doesn't work that way.

Selections:

* Commuter's Problem
* Do-it-yourself
* The Silver Corridor
* All the Sounds of Fear
* Gnomebody
* The Sky is Burning
* Mealtime
* The Very Last Day of a Good Woman
* Battlefield
* Deal From the Bottom
* The Wind Beyond the Mountains
* The Forces that Crush
* Nothing for My Noon Meal
* Hadj
* Rain, Rain, Go Away
* In Lonely Lands

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of anything that I have read by Harlan Ellison. After a friend introduced me to Dreams with Sharp Teeth, I was overcome with interest about the author’s writing style. Because of watching the film, Ellison’s personality is something that I have come to describe as swashbuckling. The way he brandishes words in social situations is reminiscent of how a pirate or musketeer would use a sword to gracefully and skillfully fence with the enemy. Needless to say, the prospect of being able to delve into the mind of such a colorful person through his fiction was something that I was looking forward to after seeing him on the screen.

The day after I watched the documentary; despite my obstinate internal insistence that I had to finish my current novel first, and notwithstanding the fact that the book had been mentally labeled by me as what I would read NEXT, I picked up my gifted copy of “Ellison Wonderland” (it was no coincidence that the same friend who had given me the book also introduced me to the film). I have to say that I have been relishing the stories within. Judiciously, only reading one story a day. So that each craftily written piece individually absorbs into the palate of my brain. Much like one covets the taste of each luscious spoonful of gelato or a sip of the best wine. It isn’t often that an author is able to transport this reader so completely into different realms. Although I have only read three of the stories, I can already tell that Ellison has a unique skill in the use of literary prose which is akin to those authors I have deemed as favorites.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reread or more accurately relistening (that is, if the first time I physically read it with my eyes I heard my voice in my head) is the primary reason why audio book recordings were made in the first place! Besides, Harlan Ellison was born to be reread and for his voice to never fade.

HE's wonderful, gravelly voice recounts 45,000+ words, about 6 hours of introductory backstory, loaded with vitriol, humor and The Things From Another World's Past.
-
"If you haven't read Harlan Ellison, you haven't read." ~ Richard Halasz
---
Josh Olson, most notably the Oscar-nominated screenplay writer of the excellent film A History of Violence, bats clean-up with a brilliant, poignant Afterword that contains Venn diagrams of Olympic logo proportions.
Side Note: The Stairway Sex Scene in A History of Violence reminded me of MY fumbling, bumbling, but not stumbling missteps of finding love on the way up.
"If you haven't heard Harlan Ellison reading Harlan Ellison, then, WTF are you waiting for?!" ~ RH

[Jaime Mozo Dutton · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was a kid I read a sci-fi short story by Harlan Ellison that has stayed with me all these years as only great fiction can. That story, A Boy And His Dog, was dangerous, exciting, genre defying and a pure pleasure to read. So a high bar of expectation was set before going into this collection by the same author and what a disappointment was in store for me. Not one, not one, not one single story in this collection stayed with me even five minutes after reading. Everything seemed so cheesey, so 50s sci-fi with all the familiar tropes that entails... was this really the same writer as the story that so shocked and exited me as a 15 year old. Unfortunately yes. This is a stinker guys, our and simple. Avoid.

[Atrackbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ellison is, quite frankly, one of the most articulate writers in the genre, but it's not an elegant articulacy but aggressive. His writing forces you to engage with details and minutiae and most of the time it pays off in something resonant and thoughtful. Sometimes, though, it's just weird and confusing.

This collection contains some of his best stories, stories that can be picked apart in a number of satisfying ways and still hold up to the scrutiny. A mixed bag, some great ones and not-so-great ones. Either way, Ellison's always interesting.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

“They” say that Harlan Ellison is the master of the short story. After reading this book, one of many of his I have read, I have no problem agreeing with “them.”

What a talent it is, to be able to craft a truly “short” story, that is self-contained and complete, within a very few pages.

[Paul DeStefano · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of gleefully demented short stories.

He's a master of a turn of phrase and the vignettes presented here with a wink and a nudge push you into bizarre landscapes that are well worth exploring.

This is my favorite collection of short stories by any singular author.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

His stories are timeless.

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The audio book version has a lot of commentary from the author.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good set of stories from one of the greats in the genre. This is some of his earlier work, so not quite as cerebral as his later stuff, but still thought provoking and deep.