LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS - Harlan Ellison, editor


Is it possible to wait 50 years for one book?  Yes. Fans of Harlan Ellison and/or his Dangerous Visions collections have been waiting for this particular book for just that long.

Is it possible for a book that one has been waiting for for half a century to even come close to meeting fifty years' worth of expectations?  Ahhh, that is the real question, isn't it?  The answer is a resounding "Yes!"  The stories ... well let me get to the stories in a minute.

Although this project was underway in the 1970's, the late Harlan Ellison was constantly questioned "When would it come out?" "What's taking so long?" This isn't a surprise.  The first two books garnered a lot of attention, really pushed some boundaries and quite probably changed the face of science fiction and speculative fiction. So, the last volume ... where is it?

 The brilliant J. Michael Straczynski - author, editor, and perhaps Harlan Ellison's closest living friend - has picked up the Dangerous Visions torch and seen it through to publication. In doing so, Straczynski opens the books (after the Introduction) with a 58 page essay titled "Ellison Exegesis" in which he explains the real reasons why this book was fifty years in the making. If you are human, and not a psychopath, you will certainly be moved by what you read. Straczynski is frank and almost brutal - though the word has a negative connotation and I don't mean it that way at all. 

Harlan Ellison suffered his demons. Those of us who were not friends, but fans, were not aware of this.  Our heroes aren't supposed to be human, after all. 

What Straczynski reveals - from his relationship with Ellison to the depths of Harlan's troubles - is worth the price of the book. Especially if you have been waiting 50 years for this volume or you're a fan of Ellison's work.

To the collection:

Straczynski provides the majority of the introductions (read that "Ellison Exegesis" to understand the importance of this) and has picked a few stories to be added to the collection. As he explains, over the course of fifty years, some authors whose work has initially been selected to appear in the volume have asked for the rights back in order to be published elsewhere. Others are, perhaps, no longer 'dangerous' to the modern reader.

Overall I found the anthology to be of high caliber and great reading. So often in a collection like this there are one or two stories (at least I hope for only one or two) that don't speak to me at all.  All the stories here were enjoyable and if I wasn't familiar with the author, I've already gone and looked them up to see what else of theirs is available to read.

Though nothing was a bomb, a couple of stories stood out to me.  First was Cecil Castellucci's "After Taste" - an interesting storing of eating alien cuisine.

I can't say that I've been a big fan of Cory Doctorow's writing (I don't dislike it, but I'm generally not inclined to pick up a book with his name on it) but I did enjoy "The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart)".

Kayo Hartenbaum is one of those authors with whom I am not familiar.  "Binary System" is possibly one of the more 'dangerous' stories in the collection and I was definitely impressed.

The book is very delightfully illustrated by artist Tim Kirk. I remember Kirk's work from the 1970's. The work here - whether from the 70's or the 2020's (I'm not sure when these were done) - is very strong.

This book contains the following:

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS by J. Michael Straczynski
ELLISON EXEGESIS by J. Michael Straczynski
ASSIGNMENT NO.1 by Stephen Robinett 
HUNGER by Max Brooks 
INTERMEZZO 1: BROKEN, BEAUTIFUL BODY ON BEACH by D. M. Rowles
NONE SO DEAF by Richard E. Peck
INTRODUCTION TO ED BRYANT’S “WAR STORIES” by Harlan Ellison
WAR STORIES by Edward Bryant
INTERMEZZO 2: BEDTIME STORY by D. M. Rowles
THE GREAT FOREST LAWN CLEARANCE SALE—HURRY, LAST DAYS! by Stephen Dedman
INTERMEZZO 3: EVEN BEYOND OLYMPUS by D. M. Rowles
AFTER TASTE by Cecil Castellucci
LEVELED BEST by Steve Herbst
THE TIME OF THE SKIN by A. E. Van Vogt
RUNDOWN by John Morressy
INTERMEZZO 4: ELEMENTAL by D. M. Rowles
THE WEIGHT OF A FEATHER (THE WEIGHT OF A HEART) by Cory Doctorow
THE MALIBU FAULT by Jonathan Fast
THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM by Howard Fast
INTERMEZZO 5: FIRST CONTACT by D. M. Rowles
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA by Robert Wissner
GOODBYE by Steven Utley
PRIMORDIAL FOLLIES by Robert Sheckley
MEN IN WHITE by David Brin
INTERMEZZO 6: CONTINUITY by D. M. Rowles
THE FINAL POGROM by Dan Simmons
INTERMEZZO 7: THE SPACE BEHIND THE OBVIOUS by D. M. Rowles
FALLING FROM GRACE by Ward Moore
FIRST SIGHT by Adrian Tchaikovsky
INTERMEZZO 8: PROOF by D. M. Rowles
BINARY SYSTEM by Kayo Hartenbaum
DARK THRESHOLD by P. C. Hodgell
THE DANANN CHILDREN LAUGH by Mildred Downey Broxon
JUDAS ISCARIOT DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF: A STORY IN FRAGMENTS by James S. A. Corey
AFTERWORD: TETELESTAI! COMPILING THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS

Looking for a good book? Last Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (and J. Michael Straczynski) was worth waiting for, with powerful fiction for modern readers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley and Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

* * * * * *

Last Dangerous Visions

editors: Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski

publisher: Blackstone Publishing

ISBN: 979-8212183796

hardcover, 406 pages

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