Customer Reviews

The Voice from the Edge midnight in the sunken cathedral

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The market for Ellison's work is growing, slowly, ...There's something about picking up Ellison's work in an early or original edition that gets you closer to the author. It gives you a sense of historicity and a taste of the times when the work first hit the palate of his reading public.

The better way to get this feeling is by listening to Ellison read his own work. There is no better way to get into an Ellison story than to listen to the guy read it. He's a cranky, angry, loud man with a lot of opinions and I think he is heard mostly because he makes an articulate point when he opens his mouth. His commentary comes from his heart and it shows in his delivery. When he reads his stories, he has the same kind of passion and range, but add to it his spectacular storytelling ability. This is a guy you want around your campfire one night if just to tell one ghost story to the kiddies.

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellison...would you mind telling the one about the Function of Dream Sleep? The scouts'll love it."

Fair bet some of the scouts will leave camp with bed wetting problems for years to come.

Among the stories is the classic short story "Jefty is Five" which, in print eluded me for years. I just didn't dig the story. Once I heard Ellison read it, however, I had a Joycian epiphany and now hold it as one of the best stories ever written...scifi or otherwise. Get this collection for the car or home or wherever. You will love it.

Harlan Ellison writes with an edge, to say the least - and it's an edge I've enjoyed for years.

To hear him read his own stories allows you to hear the edge, though - and this provides a whole new perspective on his work. His voice was captivating from the very first moment of the first story, and lead me through material both familiar and new. His own commentary is offered at a few points in the tape - another fantastic addition.

I did occasionally find the recording quality somewhat questionable, but the pleasure of hearing this master storyteller in action more than makes up for the problems.

A true listening experience - I highly recommend it.

I bought this CD with trepidation. Why trepidation? Because often when I've listened to an author read his own work I want to write that person and tell him/her to stick to writing. NOT in this case. Harlan Ellison has always been one of my favorites, ever since discovering the anthologies he edited: 'Dangerous Visions' and 'Again, Dangerous Visions'. I could not stop listening to the stories in this cd set. My gosh what range of voices this man has! What a delight! He really made his stories come to life. All I can say is 'thank you, Mr. Ellison! You delighted me and made me think with your work on the printed page and now you give me further pleasure via this means. Thank you for adding to my life (and I don't say that lightly). For those of you thinking of getting this cd set -- stop thinking. You deserve the treat of Mr. Ellison.

The All-Singing, All Dancing, Extremely Entertaining Audio Ellison#2:
Having recently purchased -- and seriously enjoyed the hell out of -- Vol. 4 & vol. 5 of Ellison's "The Voice From the Edge" series of Audio book/story & essay collections, I was moved to listen to the first three volumes (purchased as each one came out, earlier this century). I almost (almost, but not nearly quite) understand why the girl who gave this collection did so: Personally, I think two or three of the stories Ellison included in this volume could have been replaced by far better, more engaging stories. To wit: "S.R.O." (which is amusing, but a bit too long), "The End of The Time of Leinard" and "Rat Hater". I should rush to point out that Ellison's narration actually overcomes the weakness of two of those stories (His New York accent -- "soy-cuss" for circus, always pronouncing it "thee", as a New Yorker would, when saying the -- is spot-on and hee-larious, in "S.R.O."; and his impression of a lost Sporano is equally great in "Rat Hater"). But there are plenty of other tales that would have served the collection (and Ellison, since this might act as introduction to new readers) better (stories like "Knox", ""Working With the Little People" or "Daniel White For the Greater Good", etc.). That said, the mook who claims there are no suspenseful stories -- and who apparently found no entertainment in the incredible readings -- is about as deep and as complicated as a bowel of cheerios. Follow her advice at peril to your own personality and wit. While "In Lonely Lands" is a moving story of friendship, I found myself wishing the book had led off with "Midnight In the Sunken Cathedral," a powerful fantasy about a man who had lived his days rueful of the fact that he had never gotten to know his father (who died while he was still young). It starts and ends on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, just off the spot known as the Bermuda Triangle, a place called "the tongue of the ocean", where the protagonist (a sonar technician for the Navy) finds not only a multi-colored mermaid and a sort of blackhole/singularity under the ocean...but also a red waterfall, the entrance to Atlantis, Martians, and...well, just a whole lot more.
"Go Twoard the Light" (the only truly "science fiction" story in the whole collection, despite the complaints of the aforementioned mook), is what Graham Greene once termed an "entertainment". It's fun, it's entertaining (to be sure) and it even comes up with an interesting explanation for an historical, biblical event. Nothing deeper than that, but still a whole lot of fun. "Soft Monkey" is Ellison's second Edgar-Award-winning story (there is another in Vol. 5), and Ellison's masterful reading skills (the ability to jump from the hard-edged, NY City accent to a softer intonation when changing from dialogue to third person narration) is perfect. The story of a black homeless woman who witnesses a murder, it is both edge-of-your-seat thrilling and heart wrenching in the extreme. The same can be said of the Nebula-Award-winning Ellison classic, "Jeffty is Five", a story about a child whose tie to the past is so strong, he never grows older than five years of age. And everything around him is likewise tied to the past. It's a story about the necessity for change, as well as the need (so quickly forgotten in the USA) for holding onto things from the past, and for not _always_ changing -- or moving on -- simply because something is a newer version. Sometimes older ways, and older things (beautiful buildings, works of art, etc.) are more than worthy of maintaining. Another "entertainment", "Prince Myshkin..." is Ellison at his most comical (the story was originally written as a pure audio piece, in the 1970s, and published in nearly a decade later). Finally, as a the closing piece, one of Ellison's most powerful stories: "The Function of Dream Sleep," a story about a man whose soul has become so tortured by the loss of loved ones, something called the "thanatos mouth" has awakened, deep inside him. Meetings at strange, dark houses in the California hills, groups of disease-laden empaths, and an ominous figure whom protagonist McGrath must eventually visit, all figure into a dark, unsettling tale which elicts one of his most impassioned readings from author Harlan Ellison (the afterword, about how the story came to be, is quite moving as well). All-in-all, even with the three merely average tales included (tales improved by Ellison's unerring narrative skills), this is yet another five star audio collection that will entertain for hours.

If you never heard Harlan narrate and bring his characters to life you are really missing out. I am a long term fan and I never tire of listing to Harlan no matter what!

Driving back and forth from Cleveland to Chicago, I use suspenseful Stephen King stories to pass the time and keep entertained. I purhased this CD thinking it was along those lines because that's how Amazon catagorized it....I was DEAD wrong. The stories in the collection were purely science fiction. There was no suspense or intrigue in any of the stories but merely strange tales of aliens and space ships all trying to give some deeper meaning that I couldn't begin to follow. I was extremely dissapointed. I kept thinking the stories would get better, but they only got worse. Eventually I gave up and threw the CD away. If boring science fiction stories aren't your thing...don't waste your money like I did.