Books by author: Harlan Ellison

A wonderful collection of short stories around the theme of death. The back cover asks if Ellison is "the best short story writer we've got", and I would certainly place him in the front ranks. His material is the best I have read, though my exposure to good writing has been limited, given my history of reading pulp horror/fantasy. I really should get around to re-reading some of the "classics" in literature...

I never really got beyond the introduction. I will get back to this eventually.

With my first introduction to Ellison, I am deeply impressed by his writing talent. While I can't claim to understand all the stories in this collection, I am certainly inspired to read more of Ellison's work.

Other than it's sheer bulk (1000+ pages in trade paperback!), I'm not sure why I put this down halfway through, only to pick it up nearly a year later. I'm glad I went back to it. Ellison is a fantastic writer: even while he adapts punctuational practice to his own purposes, he manages to create wonderfully detailed descriptions and often compelling stories. His work is varied in quality, and this collection covers the spectrum from his childhood scratchings to his masterpieces. I highly recommend this collection as a good starting point for the interested reader.

I'm going to have to re-read the original collection. It appears that this would have made a very interesting movie.

A decent novella, though somewhat predictable, I thought.