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Post by dem bones on Oct 28, 2009 9:34:34 GMT
Harlan Ellison - No Doors, No Windows (Pyramid, Nov. 1975) Cover & Design by the Dillons Introduction: Blood/Thoughts
The Whimper Of Whipped Dogs Eddie, You're My Friend Status Quo At Troydens Nedra At f.:5.6 Opposites Attract Toe The Line Down In The Dark Pride In The Profession The Children's Hour White Trash Don't Exist Thicker Than Blood Two Inches In Tomorrow's Column Promises Of Laughter Ormond Always Pays His Bills The Man On The Juice Wagon Tired Old ManBlurb: NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS Feeling trapped? No exits in your life? Confronted by days and nights of shivering fear? Forget it! If you think you have troubles, wait till you meet the men and women ... and things in these 16 heart-squeezing suspense stories by the man the Louisville Courier-Journal & Times says "is currently the leading craftsman in the literature of terror and dread" Gathered together for the first time in a book guaranteed to make your life seem sweet and sensible by comparison, these shuddery thrillers introduce you to: a mad bomber, a hangman, a corrupt PR man, the guy who drives the nitro truck, the demon-god of street violence, assorted murderers and their victims and, in a brand-new story done especially for this collection, an encounter with the tired little old man who wasn't there. Harlan Ellison, winner of the Mystery Writers of America 1974 award for Best Short Story (included in this book), shows you a frightening world of paranoia and panic, fear and fantasy ... with no way out!In his generous and frequently angry introduction - it's p.40 before we can make a start on The Whimper Of Whipped Dogs - Ellison rants against being labled a "Sci-Fi guy" and threatens all manner of unpleasantness should he find this one shelved in the SF racks at his local bookstore, so well done to Pyramid for going with such sympathetic cover artwork. Harlan self-pigeonholes No Doors, No Windows as his first ever collection of suspense stories and the three i've begun with - Whimper ... (murder in broad daylight: people just step by the victim not wanting to get involved), Nedra At f.:5.6 (a vampire effort, inspired by Fritz Leiber's The Girl With The Hungry Eyes) and White Trash Don't Exist (despicable town bully takes a wrong turn in swampland) are legit and bloody brilliant horror stories. My favourite Ellison horror to date, Sawney Beane outing She's A Young Thing And Cannot Leave Her other would come much later, but i'm guessing there may be some Harlan disciples on here who can guide us to his bloodiest work?
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Will E.
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 24
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Post by Will E. on Feb 2, 2011 4:34:08 GMT
Thinking back, this may have been the first Ellison I bought, although I believe I'd already read STRANGE WINE. I have the later Ace edition. Any Ellison is a good Ellison, however.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 2, 2018 21:08:29 GMT
I see Harlan Ellison passed away last week - a one of a kind.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 3, 2018 0:31:32 GMT
I see Harlan Ellison passed away last week - a one of a kind. His "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" left a scar on my brain that will probably never go away (I mean that as a compliment--I think). "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" is also strong stuff. "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" probably rounds out my personal top three of his stories. I also appreciate that he voiced himself as a character on Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, an incarnation of the program that I watched with my older son. The writers for it had good taste in horror--along with Ellison, it features characters named H. P. Hatecraft and Howard E. Roberts.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 3, 2018 10:52:45 GMT
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Post by andydecker on Jul 3, 2018 17:15:08 GMT
This is another sad loss.
I never was a fan. His ego and his reputation overshadowed his work so much. Mostly I remember his Star Trek episode which is said to be butchered - I never could work enough interest up to buy one one those complete script books - and some stories. Of his stories in "Year's Best Horror" I only remember that I thought them difficult to get through. But this is long ago. Maybe today I would enjoy them more.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 3, 2018 18:59:31 GMT
I know it's odd (even by my standards), but one of the things I always think about whenever Harlan is mentioned is this short story he wrote back circa '73. I can no longer recall the title, nor much about the plot. It was in a mag I happened to pick up, and involved a man going through some kind of intergalactic brain fever (that's probably the wrong way to describe it--even when I read it, I was unsure of just what was going on--and that was around 45 years ago now). Anyhow, I always remember this line where the man suddenly saw everything suffused with this glaring dark pink color that reminded him of the inside of the slit in his own penis when he had had an inflammation once. I can't recall the specific words--but the image certainly made an impact. I may have actually drawn a sharp intake of breath when I read that sentence.
Harlan wrote some fabulous dialogue for my personal ultimate cult actress, Grayson Hall, in an episode of The Man from UNCLE, "The Pieces of Fate Affair." As Cordwainer Bird, he contributed to an ill-fated 70s Canadian space opera, The Starlost. And then, of course, there was "The City at the Edge of Forever" on Star Trek. The latter, I would say, deserves the honor and renown it has received.
My most recent Harlan experience was a couple of months ago, when I watched a youtube video that was Harlan's ten minute diatribe against Walt Disney. It was a review of some film the corporation emitted about the life of P L Travers (who would have been horrified at being made the subject of a Dizz picture--but there you are). Harlan filmed it in what appeared to be his study or living room several years ago.
Wherever you are, Harlan, Ave atque Vale! And may the peace that passeth understanding finally be yours.
H.
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Post by mcannon on Jul 3, 2018 23:34:12 GMT
I believe that's the same UK edition that I borrowed from my local library way back in the early 1970s. At the tender age of 13, some of it's contents rather blew my little mind. While quite a few of the anthology's stories haven't aged that well, others, such as Fritz Leiber's "Gonna Roll the bones", are as fresh as ever. I'm rather in two minds about Ellison. He produced quite a few brilliant short stories and many, many great ones, but he was certainly in love with his own legend, which I think tended to overshadow his work at times; and I certainly found some of stories a bit unpleasant. At the age of 15, I thought the anecdote about mailing a dead gopher to a recalcitrant publisher was hilarious; 40+ years later, I found myself wondering who had the job of opening and disposing that package. I bet it wasn't said publisher - probably some poor secretary. Not surprisingly, many of the obits touched on the never-released "Last Dangerous Visions" project. I'm hoping that some of the unpublished contents can now finally be released in some form, as there are several stories by now long-dead authors (including Tom Reamy and Manly Wade Wellman) that I'd love to finally read. Mark
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Post by ropardoe on Jul 4, 2018 13:26:59 GMT
This is another sad loss.
I never was a fan. His ego and his reputation overshadowed his work so much. Mostly I remember his Star Trek episode which is said to be butchered - I never could work enough interest up to buy one one those complete script books - and some stories. Of his stories in "Year's Best Horror" I only remember that I thought them difficult to get through. But this is long ago. Maybe today I would enjoy them more.
Has anyone posted a link to Christopher Priest's masterly critique of the whole Last Dangerous Visions fiasco? It's great reading (if you've got an hour to spare). Chris had a story initially accepted for the book but he withdrew it and it's been published in various places elsewhere. It's "An Infinite Summer", and is one of my absolute favourite SF short stories. I've just tried to post the link here, and although I copied and pasted it from the address line, it doesn't want to work, so some judicious Googling will be needed for anyone who wants to find it.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 4, 2018 18:45:56 GMT
Not surprisingly, many of the obits touched on the never-released "Last Dangerous Visions" project. I'm hoping that some of the unpublished contents can now finally be released in some form, as there are several stories by now long-dead authors (including Tom Reamy and Manly Wade Wellman) that I'd love to finally read. Mark I had no idea the Wellman story--which some quick research tells me is titled "Not All A Dream"--existed. Now I'm torn between the thrill of learning about a lost tale of his and the frustration of not having access to it.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2018 20:11:32 GMT
This is another sad loss.
I never was a fan. His ego and his reputation overshadowed his work so much. Mostly I remember his Star Trek episode which is said to be butchered - I never could work enough interest up to buy one one those complete script books - and some stories. Of his stories in "Year's Best Horror" I only remember that I thought them difficult to get through. But this is long ago. Maybe today I would enjoy them more.
Has anyone posted a link to Christopher Priest's masterly critique of the whole Last Dangerous Visions fiasco? It's great reading (if you've got an hour to spare). Chris had a story initially accepted for the book but he withdrew it and it's been published in various places elsewhere. It's "An Infinite Summer", and is one of my absolute favourite SF short stories. I've just tried to post the link here, and although I copied and pasted it from the address line, it doesn't want to work, so some judicious Googling will be needed for anyone who wants to find it. A big thank you for this, Rosemary. I read this and it is quite eye-opening. Of course I knew that this is the anthology which never came out and is taken as a joke, still to read about it from this perspective is kind of sad.
But the thing which really gave me a shudder was the comment from George R.R. Martin. I know all too vividly how easily and how badly these things can get out of hand, he wrote back then. Thinking of how things stand with his last GoT novel The Winds of Winter , which still didn't appear, this may be his LDV.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 4, 2018 22:28:26 GMT
All I could get from Andreas's link was a statistics table for how many times LDV had been saved on Wayback (at least, I think that is what the numbers on display signified). This link works here in the US, at least. It may not work elsewhere. archive.li/qY718cheers, Steve
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Post by mcannon on Jul 5, 2018 2:10:43 GMT
All I could get from Andreas's link was a statistics table for how many times LDV had been saved on Wayback (at least, I think that is what the numbers on display signified). This link works here in the US, at least. It may not work elsewhere. archive.li/qY718cheers, Steve There's a copy of the text at web.archive.org/web/20000902203835/http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf-texts/Ansible/Last_Deadloss_Visions,Chris_Priest I have a hard copy edition of "Last Deadloss Visions", published by Fantagraphics some time back in the 1990s. It is indeed a fascinating read, not least because Christopher Priest addresses the subject in a very measured, polite and slightly regretful manner. While critical of Harlan Ellison, it's by no means a screed of hatred and bile. After reading the essay, I concluded that the book would almost certainly never appear in any form, at least in Harlan's lifetime - which certainly seemed to be Mr Priest's view. Sadly, it turned out that we were both correct. Mark
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Post by helrunar on Jul 5, 2018 3:27:44 GMT
When I got near the end of Mr. Priest's essay, I checked the Wikipedia entry for this book that was never published. Somebody has already updated the text to state that Harlan died last week and no, the book was never published.
I find myself wondering if some brave soul will manage to find that coffin shaped box amongst Harlan's papers and actually publish some version of this book. Maybe the title should be changed, however, to Posthumous, Nostalgic Visions.
A somewhat less ignominious fate, perhaps, than the final volumes of that abortive George RR Martin saga. Those will almost certainly be filled by texts composed on commission by a trade publisher, novelized from the television script.
H.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 5, 2018 12:54:59 GMT
Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, December 1981 (Vol. 1, No. 9), which I got for Mike Ashley's article on M.R. James, includes an interview with Harlan Ellison where he's as hubristic as usual. While I find his fiction hard to read for undefinable stylistic reasons, I do recommend his non-fiction, particularly Harlan Ellison's Watching (which is mostly film criticism). I have the 2008 edition.
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