Customer Reviews

Deathbird Stories

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
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I read this book because, in the acknowledgements his wonderful novel "American Gods," neil gaiman said this book burned itself into the back of brain when he was still young enough for something like that to happen.

Well, how can you resist an endorsement like that? So, I raced up to the nearest library that had this book (an hour or so away, I'll have you know) and checked it out. And befoul these modern gods if it didn't blow my mind. At least, parts of it did.

Most of the stories - "the Whimper of Whipped Dogs," "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin," "Basilisk," and "Ernest and the Machine God," just to name a few - are really brilliant. They will twist your mind around like only certain versions of certain myths can. They will smack your conciousness around until you think there really are gods in the engine of your car and that traitors really are the high priests of Aries. They will, as Niel Gaiman says, burn themselves into the back of your brain.

Others, however, are not so brilliant. A few simply repeated ideas put forth in other, better stories. Some were simply not as interesting as the others, and some were both uninteresting and sordid. But please note that "some" could and should be read as "one, two at the outside." The majority are amazing.

On the whole, however, this is a wonderful book. I am shocked and dismayed to find that it it unavailable. I think anybody who is into mythology should read this book, just for some of the ideas expressed in it. So should anyone who read "American Gods" and thought it was cool, too. They should have a good time pointing to certain stories and saying, "Neil Gaiman lifted that, that and that." I recommend this book highly. Even with the few faulty tales herein, it is definately worth the time.

This is a very black, dark book. This is not a book for kids, nor is it a book for people who haven't read anything by Ellison previously. Harlan Ellison is one of those rare writers that can finish a story so powerfully, that you'll feel like you've been literally stabbed in the heart. Like many of Ellison's short story collections, he deals with a specific theme. In this book, he writes short stories about gods, in all their myriad shapes and forms. Gods of machines, pain, rocks, speed, revenge, among others. Of the 19 stories in this collection, let me tell you what I consider to be the best. THE WHIMPER OF WHIPPED DOGS: Ellison's award-winning retelling of the Kitty Genovese incident. Never heard of Kitty Genovese? Don't worry, after reading this chilling tale, you'll make sure you remember. BASILISK: A traitor to his country comes home and finds that he is not welcome. A little confusing at first, but you'll soon get the hang of it. PRETTY MAGGIE MONEYEYES: Don't let the strange title deceive you. This is Ellison in TOP form. Ever wondered what gods reside at the casinos and what they have in mind. It's not PRETTY, I can assure you. ERNEST AND THE MACHINE GOD: An easy-to-visualize story about a girl in a car-accident and her meetings at a gas station. ADRIFT OFF THE ISLETS OF LANGERHANS . . . : Another award-winning story about a man trying to find the geographical location of his soul. THE DEATHBIRD: Still another award-winner. This one is Ellison's retelling of Genesis. This story has a very innovative structure to it. You'll see what I mean, when you buy this book.

This collection groups nineteen of Ellison's stories dealing with subjects such as gods spirits and suchlike. In former times, people created numerous gods and spirits for just about every aspect of their lives. Gods for thunder the moon and the sea. Spirits and Ghosts living in caves, rivers etc. What if we still felt the need to invent and invoke such gods and spirits today? What would they be like? A god for machines? A spirit in a slot machine? A demon ruling over violent crime? These are the subjects that Ellison deals with in this collection of stories.

The book straddles the boundaries between science fiction, fantasy and horror and as such it will not satisfy SF purists but it does contain a number of very powerful stories. The opening tale, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" is a shocking and worrying take on the cruelty of city violence. It is followed by "Along the Scenic Route" in which modern day knights in armour fight their jousts to the death on the public highway. Those two, along with "Ernest and the MachineGod", "Basilisk" and "Deathbird" are my favourites but they are not the only stories to leap off the page and grab hold of your imagination. There are some weaker tales here too but they are outnumbered by the good ones.

I'd not recommend this as an introduction to Ellison. The anthology "The Essential Ellison" fills that role perfectly but, if you read and enjoyed that, you will like this book. If you like this book, I'd recommend Ellen Datlow's themed anthology "Alien Sex" though not her rather weak follow up.

Harlan presents some stellar stories here about what modern gods might be like in what one would call a pessimistic, cynical outlook. He moves through such milieus as sci-fi, high fantasy and even urban fantasy through this book.

The best stories are very hard-hitting and emotionally affecting. These include The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, a retelling of the Kitty Genovese episode about the alleged god of New York City, The Basilisk, where the most terrifying aspect of the story is how a small town treats a returning POW and Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes where a manipulative woman continues to manipulate even after death. There are some other good stories, such as the road rage tale, though not as emotionally hard-hitting.

The problems in several of the stories stem from an abundance of cleverness. Rather than letting the story take the forefront, Harlan chooses to favor style over substance in an attempt to showcase his virtuoisity in the various methods of writing. This lessened some of his stories for me. He is most successful doing this in the titular tale, The Deathbird, but it was still distracting even there.

A very good collection though, despite the flaws. It is unapologetic and uncomprimising demanding you take the stories on their own terms.

For those fans of Ellison, you will not be disappointed, for those of you not familiar with Ellison, this one will have you hitting the used book stores in a vain hope of finding more fodder for your mind. (Don't bother looking, I already hit every book store myself.) Reading this book is like seeing Mohammed Ali box or Stevie Ray Vaughn play the guitar, you get the feeling of seeing the best at his best. Every story in this collection is a gem, some more than others. "The Whimpering of Whipped Dogs" is a classic in and of itself. "The Deathbird" is the most amazing story ever created by a fantasy writer and I say this with no hyperbole. Go out and get this book . . . NOW! It will change the way you view the world and yourself. Other books make this promise, Deathbird Stories is the only book I've ever read that actually delivers.

While I typically associate Harlan Ellison with Science Fiction, I'm somewhat hesitant to call all of these stories SciFi... they are more like Twilight Zone episodes. They are 19 short stories that involve individuals getting caught up in all sorts of fantastic situations. While there is a general underlying theme of the stories involving "Gods", I found that the main uniting feature was the fantastic nature of the stories.

Some sample reviews from the collection:

ALONG THE SCENIC ROUTE(1969)***** - Ellison published this tale of "Road Rage" way back in the late 60's. It is definately a classic, and one of the more SciFi-esque stories from this collection. Richard K. Morgan recently tried to do a modern "Road Rage" novel, MARKET FORCES(2005)***, which takes ideas from ALONG THE SCENIC ROUTE, but ultimately falls flat.

O YE OF LITTLE FAITH(1968)**** - A young man of no faith in any god, is accompanying his mid-30's girlfriend back from a quick Tijuana abortion, in this pre-Roe vs. Wade world (Roe vs. Wade was decided in late 1973), and finds himself transported to a world populated by gods nobody believes in any longer.

PRETTY MAGGIE MONEYEYES(1967)*** - A sad story of two people's fateful encounter via a Slot Machine in a Las Vegas Casino. One is a pretty poor girl, who turns to prostitution to claw her way from the ghetto to Beverly Hills; the other is a long-time Vegas loser, who is down to his last dollar, and who's luck is about to change, but is it for the better?

CORPSE(1972)**** - A Latin American Studies professor from Columbia University, a man of some faith in Christianity, begins to see the emergence of a new type of god - the Automobile God, but ultimately fails to realize the inevitability and make the transition to the new faith.

SHATTERED LIKE A GLASS GOBLIN(1969)***** - A Marine, recently back from Vietnam, enters and becomes consumed by the varied pesonalities and drugs in a 60's "Party House"... reminds me of an old house my recently graduated high school buddies rented in San Diego, CA in the 70's (and which was slated to be razed along with the adjacent drive-in theater, to make way for a new shopping center). Like O YE OF LITTLE FAITH, this story is notable for the snapshot it gives of a Beatle's White Album-era America. Indeed, having just said that, I just realized that the title of this story SHATTERED LIKE A GLASS GOBLIN(1969), seems to be a play on the title of the Beatle's White Album song LOOKING THROUGH A GLASS ONION(1968).

This book has recently been republished by the SFBC in December 2005, as part of the third set of books in the SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection.

Harlan Ellison has published just a LOT of excellent short fiction (from "Daniel White For the Greater Good" and "The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-strap Wedgie," to "Paladin of the Lost Hour" and "Soft Monkey," as well as the recent, 2011 Nebula Award-Winning short story, "How Interesting: A Tiny Man"). And besides seminal anthologies like DANGEROUS VISIONS and AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS, he's also published at least a half-a-dozen must-have collections of his own work (perhaps one or two more, depending on how they are held up to the light). Of those collections, DEATHBIRD STORIES is, without a doubt, the one that stands head and shoulders above a body of work which already stands head and shoulders above the sea of published words floating around out there (for the record, the other collections are STRANGE WINE, SHATTERDAY, MINDFIELDS, ANGRY CANDY and SLIPPAGE -- failing those, THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON will do, as well). DEATHBIRD STORIES is a group of tales that addresses the issues of modern gods (whilst simultaneously saying something about older gods, like Jehovah): the gods of freeways, gambling, love, cities and commerce. DEATHBIRD STORIES has always been a powerful cycle of stories that can literally leave a reader emotionally and intellectually wrung out if read cover to cover in one sitting. Which might be part of the reason why Ellison saw fit to publish an Expanded Edition, this year, 2011, via Subterranean Press (that, and the fact that the stories included fit well inside the thematic cycle). At least two of the three newer stories have a bit of humor and levity, something that was largely absent in the 19 stories that have made up this collection for over thirty years. "From A to Z, In the Sarsaparilla Alphabet," is one of those. Like the similarly titled story in his STRANGE WINE collection, this is a series of short-shorts and vignettes, ranging from a hilarious exchange between two lower class "Demiurges" (("A is for Archon": "Not Oprah, kid! Okra, the vegetable!"), to more serious pieces dealing with racism, it's the type of Borgesian piece of fiction that Ellison has practiced to perfection. The next story, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," pulls the reader headlong into the aforementioned, emotionally relentless flow of narratives. This particular story (winner of an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America) deals with the gods of violence, and the perils of ignoring the appetites of those particular beasts (it is based on a true story, something that happened to a poor young woman in New York City in the 1960s -- and, sadly, a violent event that was nearly repeated, detail for detail, decades later -- because humans rarely, if ever, listen and learn). "Along the Scenic Route" is a story about idiots and autos, and a need for speed that results in the ultimate road rage, that speaks well to the culutre of VinDiesel-film-inspired street racing that so many young and stupid men have taken to (once again) in these days of waning resources. A tale involving ghosts, a unicorn and the cemetaries of St. Louis, "On the Downhill Side" may be the most perfect story about love ever written. The gods of gambling get the once over in "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes", another Ellison classic which Robert Silverberg claims has the most perfect last line of any story he has ever read.
A man named Lawrence Talbot goes in search of his very soul (finding it in a location he'd never expected) in "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans..." (a story which won the Hugo Award) and, in "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" (a story chosen for inclusion in the prestigious, Best American Short Story collection, 1993), Ellison uses a Shirly Jackson story as inspiration for a quintessential Ellison tale (humor & pathos; short sharp Borgesian jabs; unusual structure) that deals with the notion of personal responsiblility, and the ultimate editct: thou art god. The last story, "The Deathbird," deals with Christian mythology and the notion of forgiveness and the afterlife and...just a whole lot of things, and is another Hugo-Award-winning virtuouso that will leave the reader wrung out.

Like recent publications by Ray Bradbury, P.K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut republished by Everyman's and the Library of America, Ellison's DEATHBIRD STORIES is a seminal work of fantasy and SF, and a book that is deserving of it's status (and a book that should be collected by one of those prestigious publishers). It's also a book that should be in every home library, it's that good -- and that essential.

The philosopher of horror and sci-fi, Harlan Ellison offers terrifying myths and metaphors for the modern age in the guise of horror stories. These stories are emotionally and intellectually provocative, sometimes leaving the reader in a troubled state of mind, as the author warns in the book's forward. Definitely not "kid stuff," Ellison's stories express the spiritual terror of modern man, tottering like Nietzsche's tightrope walker over the abyss.

Not for the easily offended, the stories within are dark and visceral, raw and questioning of the assumptions most people never question. Save the title story, "The Deathbird," for last; it is a masterpiece in a collection of (for the most part) masterpieces. A pantheon of "modern gods" for a callous, painful modern age.

I suspect that most of these stories are already in The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective (Revised and Expanded) and that renders this collection obsolete. Could be why it's out of print. I had a copy and I read it so many times. Then I gave it to a friend that I never talk to anymore. Be that a lesson for you. It was signed too.

But from the first story, a meditation on Kitty Genovese and the urban habit of just watching violence without doing anything, to the last one "Deathbird" which works the same theme as His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) (His Dark Materials) but more effectively, there's not a story in this collection that I felt wasted my time. This is rare as many Harlan Ellison collections mix the brilliant with the clunkers.

If you can buy a copy, buy a copy. It's well worth the price.