The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective (Revised and Expanded) (Paperback)

by Harlan Ellison (Author) "The audience of the 1920s is not the audience of the new millennium yet the substance of this message endures..." (more)
Key Phrases: moley man, life hutch, hold the relish, New York, Valerie Lone, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Harlan Ellison is probably best known as a script writer for sci-fi and fantasy movies and TV series such as the original Outer Limits, The Hunger, Logan's Run, and Babylon Five. But his range is much broader than that, encompassing stories, novels, essays, reviews, reminiscences, plays, even fake autobiographies. Essential Ellison includes contains 74 unabridged works, including such classics as "A Boy and His Dog," "Xenogenesis," and "Mefisto in Onyx." Includes black-and-white photos.

About the Author
Master fantasist, Harlan Ellison has written and edited nearly eighty books and has garnered countless awards. He has won everything from Hugos, Nebulas, Silver Pens, and is the only writer to have won the Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Teleplay four times. He is considered by many to be the finest contemporary short story and essay writer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1250 pages
• Publisher: Morpheus International; 4th edition (March 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883398606
• ISBN-13: 978-1883398606
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #498,924 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A necessity for those who value wit, vision, & individuality, October 10, 2001

By	punkviper (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective (Paperback)

This truly is a godsend for those folks who always heard about Ellison's work, but were thwarted upon realizing that 90% of his written output is out-of-print. This tome was long-delayed [...] but thankfully delivered into the eager hands of any who wish to experience the vivid freedom of HE's pen. Ellison remains the classic "angry young man" of speculative fiction, even after all these years, and this compendium harbors so many of the highlights that make him, quite possibly, America's greatest living short-story writer.

There really is no way to put an exacting finger on what Ellison writes. It is certainly not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi, not cheap-shock horror, and not suspense dreck. It's thoughtful, highly engaging, sometimes allegorical, and always thought-provoking stuff that you just don't find in modern writers anymore. Almost like a prickly cross between George Orwell and Lewis Carroll. He is most certainly still ahead of his time, and will most likely require decades after his passing for the world to truly catch up to him and realize what a treasure he is.

So start here if you're curious about Ellisonia, then after your appetite is whetted and your curiosity piqued, track down the stuff in its original form so you can experience all of the good stuff, not merely highlights from a superb & lengthy career.

This is vital American literature.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ellison as Americana, November 21, 2004

By	Lawrence Buentello (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective (Hardcover)

I have been reading Harlan Ellison's work for years and can't recommend this book highly enough. Not only is his work enormously entertaining, but also illustrative of the social landscape from where it finds its meaning. The Essential Ellison does more than provide a retrospective of the author's work: it allows the reader to appreciate the social influences that infiltrate the fabric of the prose. Clearly, Ellison's great talent is marrying cultural and personal significance to the most arcane subject matter. Though this ability is more clearly seen in his nonfiction, it also exists perforce in his fiction, where the fantastic settings and narratives tend to divert the reader's attention from the deeper influences that may be seen in the work.

I believe that Ellison's supporters have neglected this literary attribute, as well as his critics, who should know better. Ellison, like most of us, is a product of American culture and its influences, beginning with his early experiences with anti-Semitism, his love for radio drama and comic books, and his early fascination with science fiction, and leading to more mature experiences with racism, political corruption and social irresponsibility. That these experiences influenced his life is very human; that they converted his art from ordinary narrative to meaningful literature is to the credit of the artist, who, despite working in the terribly debilitating media of television and motion pictures, retained his ability to examine human subjects with affinity and insight. Even while working inside the entertainment industry, he was able to understand the corruptive elements of it and translate these symptoms into often painful stories of human neglect and shallow intent.

Though much of Ellison's fiction is fantastic and otherworldly, it is also acutely human and introspective. A book such as this allows the reader to appreciate the artistic and intellectual growth of the artist as well as enjoy the best of that artist's efforts. Ellison's work is part of Americana, and often powerfully illustrates the failure of America idealism. He is one of the best, if not the best, living American fantasists.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superlative Spinner of Dreams, July 21, 2005

By	Sunshine Greeny - See all my reviews

Taken from the introduction, "Sublime Rebel," by Terry Dowling:

"In Egyptian mythology, Iai is a fascinating character. He is the rebel, the tester, the stubborn resisting force of intellect and insight which donkey-like stands its ground, refusing to budge, and challanges what is accepted and valued and thought to be sensible and true. The same sort of honest irrepressible rebel, in fact, which surfaced in the child who pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes and in the Fool who told King Lear that he was wrong. Those dear precious rebels(for there are, and have been, many)not only dare to question but for their pains alienate themselves from those who haven't questioned, who didn't think to question, who are now made to look stupid because they didn't."

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, author and social critic, Harlan Ellison, was a seminal influence within speculative fiction, fantasy and science fiction. As though from some bygone era, his writing in the field of science fiction is thematically grounded in human dilemma. The emotionally qualitative properties of his stories are vivid and palpable.

Think stubbornly, cantankerously steadfast in personal conviction, artistic craft and vision. A true sort of sui generis, refusing to dillydally or sugarcoat the bitter truth. Appropriately overwrought, humorous, devilish. Dead on and justified, Harlan Ellison was watching.

Time after time, Harlan's words serve as a breaker bar to wrest truth's free from convenient, apathetic confinement. I can think of no other author whose work, be it fiction or otherwise, so diligently rummages the depths of the human condition; all of those secretive, quiescent corners of the collective unconscious, hidden in the shadow of the soul.
From our shameful indifference and distraction to the overwhelming din and pall of homogeneous, race lunacy, no other author was or is more aptly suited to chronicle our perceived time...the approaching the end of a millennium, or, perhaps more likely(and to borrow a title from Ellison) approaching oblivion.

I have some twenty-five books of his, collected over many years. Some purchased new, many found in little hole-in-the-wall used book shops. But those twenty-five or so are merely a drop in the bucket when considering the totality of his work. Most of his books are long out of print, making this comprehensive tome, "The Essential Ellison", a true necessity for those seeking Harlan's work. I've had the old Morpheus addition for fifteen years, however, I'm glad to see this vital compilation of Harlan's writing hasn't disappeared as mankind slowly circles the drain. The revised and expanded retrospective assembles several pieces not found in former additions.
Also noteworthy is the recently re-issued and long sought after "Strange Wine". Next to "Deathbird Stories", it's one of my favorites. However, "The Essential Ellison" is a fine place to start. Harlan's words leave a lasting impression.