Anthologies Books - Page 6

Toast

Charles Stross

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cosmos Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $3.06

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> Graphic Novels -> General
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> Graphic Novels -> General AAS
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

It Always Lands on the Buttery Side. 4 out of 5 stars.
25 of 25 people found this review helpful.

I am not a short story fan, which is odd, given my mouldering span of attention. But there is something irritating about a tale that is over just when you start to 'get' it. But I am a Charles Stross fan, one who discovered him late, and while desperately waiting for another novel to appear, I decided to try out his shorter output via this retrospective volume selected out by the author himself.

Stross has an incredibly wide-ranging imagination. He writes hard science fiction about very far out ideas. In fact the very first story here, Antibodies, is about a theoretical idea whose very existence can threaten reality. From there we go one to the economics of information in a very virtual universe, the coffee club that ate the world, what H. P. Lovecraft only suspected, and other, equally peculiar tales.

Stross's tongue is always squarely in his check, even as he displays an impressive intellect and a deep understanding of what the world inside a geek's head really looks like. I'm to old to be considered a geek any longer, but it is fascinating to read Stross's own spin on what was interesting about my own generation of 'techies' (the title story). And there is even a delightfully ironic narrative about a Y2K apocalypse cruise.

While I haven't been converted to a short story lover, my faith in one of the odder minds out there producing quality science fiction has been confirmed. This is a writer who first made his mark as a short fiction writer. If you want to see what the fuss is about, with the added pleasure of occasional comments by the author, start here.

Editorial Review:

Short story collection containing such gems as "Antibodies," "Bear Trap," "Extracts from the Club Diary," "A Colder War," "TOAST: A con report," "A Boy and His God," "Ship of Fools," "Dechlorinating the Moderator," "Yellow Snow", "Big Brother Iron", "Lobsters".

From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown

Amazon Price: $23.20 List Price: $29.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Nesfa Press Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $14.70

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Short Stories
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Another forgotten genius of early scifi 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

There are several absolutely wonderful writers of classic SF that are nearly forgotten today. Unfortunately, Fredric Brown is one of them. Whether it's his short fiction, as in this book, or his wonderful novels, including "What Mad Universe", all of his stuff is wonderful and well worth reading. Brown, Henry Kuttner, CM Cornbluth, Richard Matheson, so many others. All of them created the SF today, and most of their stuff is superior to the SF written today. Please, if you love SF at all, read Fredric Brown. You will thank me if you do. He is wonderful.

Master Of The Vignette 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

"From These Ashes" is a collection of speculative fiction written by Fredric Brown and published between 1941 and 1965. Fredric Brown (1906 - 1972) achieved acclaim in mystery and speculative fiction writing. Over the course of his career he became a master of the vignette, which he was able to write in several genres including fantasy, horror, and science fiction. This collection was published in February of 2001.

The weakness of this collection is in the editing. The stories are supposedly grouped by year of their first publication, but there are several cases where they are incorrect, for example "The Joke" is put in the 1961 section, but it was actually first published in October of 1948 under the title "If Looks Could Kill". They also do not include any information regarding the publishing history of the stories. Many of the stories have had multiple titles over the course of their publishing history, but alternate titles are not listed. Despite the subtitle "The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown", the Editor's Notes at the back indicate that at least two stories were omitted because they were later rewritten in the form of a novel. There is a good Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg, which would be the highlight of the added material.

The most important measure of a collection is the stories themselves, and in that regard there is no complaint. While few of Fredric Brown's stories have received any attention in terms of awards or even in fan polls, there are many excellent stories here which have been long overlooked. The best known story is the novelette "'Arena'", which was the basis for the Star Trek (Original Series) episode of the same name. It was tied for 35th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll in 1971 for short fiction, and tied for 34th on the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for novelettes. The short story "The Waveries" was nominated for the Retro Hugo for the year 1945 in 1996, as was the Novelette "Pi in the Sky".

Eight of the stories are collaborations with Mack Reynolds, and there is also the wonderful "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" which he collaborated with Carl Onspaugh. Then there are the more than 50 vignettes, which are often overlooked when it comes to awards. All in all there are well over 100 pieces included, and on many of them the reader gets the feel of his mysteries as well as speculative fiction.

Editorial Review:

A collection of all 118 short science fiction and fantasy stories of one of the masters of the vignette, all his short works except two which were rewritten into parts of a novel. Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg. Dustjacket art by Bob Eggleton.

The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1 (Complete Hammer's Slammers)

David Drake, Vincent di Fate

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Night Shade Books Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $11.29

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Slammers Complete 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

The first in a proposed three volume compendium of Dave Drake's HAMMERS SLAMMERS material, this one will be convenient to have. It is likely that the buyers will, at least in many cases, have already read what it contains, but having the tales together, in a hard-back format, will be a good thing.

The Slammers are, as Dave once said himself, "the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment with ray-guns", and are notably inspired by what Dave saw and heard while he was with the Blackhorse Cav in Vietnam and Cambodia some few years ago. Some of the best tales available to bring the violence, confusion and sometimes ambiguity of who the "good guys" are in combat to the reader.

If you have read Dave's Slammers material before, you'll enjoy having it pulled together into this anthology and will want the book. If you haven't, you owe yourself the pleasure of getting this book of tightly written, fast moving stories of what combat does to those who have the "privelege" of experiencing it.

Editorial Review:

This three volume set presents for the first time the genre-defining Slammers series in a uniform hardcover set. This volume features all of the Hammer's Slammer short fiction, as well as all of the interstitial material from the original Slammers collection, as well as new artwork, and an original Slammers story, "A Death in Peacetime." The first volume will feature an introduction by Gene Wolfe, and cover art by Vincent Di Fate.

The Steampunk Trilogy

Paul Di Filippo

Amazon Price: $14.35 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Running Press Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( D ) -> Di Filippo, Paul
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

An Afternoon of Summer's Wane 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I had read Ribofunk 5 years or so ago and enjoyed it and reread it this summer and enjoyed it even more. When it was finished I wanted more so I sought out The Steampunk Trilogy. The book was engaging and funny from the very start. Very, very clever language and style and very funny. I was particularly impressed with the life the author bestowed upon the many historical people who were incorporated into the story. After reading the books I even discovered that the Hottentots Venus' pickled "friend" is indeed at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris. As a New Englander I also loved the fact that two of the stories take place in Massachusetts. When will you be in Snipe Harbour again, Paul Di Filippo?

Editorial Review:

Queen Victoria as a trollop-in-training whose newt-human clone serves as stand-in during Victoria's trysts? Walt Whitman as lusty seducer of an only partly reticent Emily Dickinson who loses the "Keys to the Inner Chambers of her Heart" to him? This fine and funny madness is "steampunk," a branch of cyberpunk fiction that locates itself in historical venues rather than in the future. Paul Di Filippo has certainly done his homework: the settings as well as the language emulate the times and, in Dickinson's and Whitman's cases, their poetic language, which asserts itself into their conversational dialogue and thoughts at most unusual but appropriate moments. Dickinson's "Universe Entire" is disrupted by a naked Whitman bathing in her rain barrel and singing his "body electric." But will Dickinson's "White Election" remain intact?

Robot Visions

Isaac Asimov, Ralph McQuarrie

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Roc Amazon Marketplace: 65 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Asimov, Isaac -> General
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Asimov, Isaac -> Paperback
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Asimov, Isaac -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love Robots! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Bought this book to add to the Asimov Books already read----half finished this book and it is a very good collection---easy read---

if you like Robot books the following may be of interest to you,

****Issac Asimov -
****The Robot Books
Asimov had a sugested reading sequence HE published in Prelude to Foundation --- for all the books he had written on robots
---am listing that here - they were not written in sequence as you see.

The Complete Robot - 1982
The Caves of Steel - 1954
The Naked Sun - 1957
The Robots of Dawn -1983
Robots and Empire - 1985
The Currents of Space - 1952
The Stars, Like Dust - 1951
Pebble in the Sky - 1950
Prelude to Foundation - 1988
Foundation - 1951
Foundation and Empire - 1952
Second Foundation - 1953
Foundation's Edge - 1982
Foundation Earth - 1983


peace and love----

Editorial Review:

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions-36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales-gathered together in one volume

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 2

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Night Shade Books Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $5.79

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> British -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not Free SF Reader 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

The second volume in this series is slighly down on the first, 3.67 as compared to 3.71.

Or to put it another way, 17 above average stories compared to 18, 6 average stories compared to 4, and 1 dodgy story compared to 2.

In an anthology of science fiction and fantasy, it delivers as advertised, as half the stories are science fiction, and half are fantasy. In fact, in somewhat of a surprise, it appears I have rated the fantasy stories 1 point higher as a group than the SF.

So, looking at the separately, each half of this anthology rates as high or around 4, as opposed to rounding up to get there.

There's a broad range in both genres, from the fluffy and completely disposable Goss speculation, to the is it or isn't it fantasy-but-quite-possibly-twisted horror of Rickert, and from Egan's space blasting posthuman mathematicians to Sterling's not too far future dodgy Eastern Europeans.

Three standout stories here, and perhaps I might get asked to give up my no-membership in the Greg Egan fan club by first comparing him to Kelly Link in the Starry Rift, and now going on to suggest that perhaps Daniel Abraham has the best tale here.

Anyone got a new excerpt from Incandescence to help banish the stench of da fairy pollution? :)

SF and F Best 02 : The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - Ted Chiang
SF and F Best 02 : The Last and Only or Mr. Moskowitz Becomes French - Peter S. Beagle
SF and F Best 02 : Trunk and Disorderly - Charles Stross
SF and F Best 02 : Glory - Greg Egan
SF and F Best 02 : Dead Horse Point - Daryl Gregory
SF and F Best 02 : The Dreaming Wind - Jeffrey Ford
SF and F Best 02 : The Coat of Stars - Holly Black
SF and F Best 02 : The Prophet of Flores - Ted Kosmatka
SF and F Best 02 : Wizard's Six - Alex Irvine
SF and F Best 02 : The Cambist and Lord Iron A Fairy Tale of Economics - Daniel Abraham
SF and F Best 02 : By Fools Like Me - Nancy Kress
SF and F Best 02 : Kiosk - Bruce Sterling
SF and F Best 02 : Singing of Mount Abora - Theodora Goss
SF and F Best 02 : The Witch's Headstone - Neil Gaiman
SF and F Best 02 : Last Contact - Stephen Baxter
SF and F Best 02 : Jaysus Christ Reanimator - Ken Macleod
SF and F Best 02 : Sorrel's Heart - Susan Palwick
SF and F Best 02 : Urdumheim - Michael Swanwick
SF and F Best 02 : Holiday - M. Rickert
SF and F Best 02 : The Valley of the Gardens - Tony Daniel
SF and F Best 02 : Winter's Wife - Elizabeth Hand
SF and F Best 02 : The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small - Chris Roberson
SF and F Best 02 : Orm the Beautiful - Elizabeth Bear
SF and F Best 02 : The Constable of Abal - Kelly Link


Wormhole time tender's raconteur replay.

4 out of 5


Going fairy froggy.

3 out of 5


Dwarf mammoths are heavy. Supreme planetary overlords have bloody big houses. Multigendered metalflesh relations are jolly complex, old chap.

4 out of 5


Antimatter lightspeed starblast instantiation means mathematical archaeology discovery decision.

4.5 out of 5


Girl, Interrupted keeper drained.

3 out of 5


Not much wizardry here.

2.5 out of 5


Fairy boyfriend rescue.

3.5 out of 5


Hobbit descent discovery doctrine defiance.

3.5 out of 5


Kid pack kill decision.

3 out of 5


Life exchange rate.

4.5 out of 5


Vegetation shortage book bashers.

3.5 out of 5


Fabrication pirates.

3.5 out of 5


Khan Alph the weather here, mum!

3 out of 5


Visibly grave talk.

4 out of 5


Ripped off.

4 out of 5


Second coming, blogging, shooting.

3 out of 5


Time to get my kitten killing Freak on.

3.5 out of 5


Learn your letters, Nimrod.

4 out of 5


Dead kid clowning just like the old man.

4 out of 5


Extrauniversal octopus minds are all grabby-blasty-tentacle, but slow to choke.

4 out of 5


A rocky end for local entrepreneur's saga.

4 out of 5


Chinese Mexican astronomical intelligence.

3.5 out of 5


The last dragon makes a deal with a museum.

4.5 out of 5


Just a sweet transs3xual goddess, like mum.

3.5 out of 5

Editorial Review:

The depth and breadth of what science fiction and fantasy fiction is changes with every passing year. The two dozen stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully maps this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer.

Pump Six and Other Stories

Paolo Bacigalupi

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Night Shade Books Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $14.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> Graphic Novels -> General
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> Graphic Novels -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Does Everything Well 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Paolo Bacigalupi writes gritty, dystopian SF, but if that's all he did there wouldn't be much reason to buy this book. What puts him over the top is the way he combines seriously beautiful and excellent writing with really great ideas. In other words, he sugar coats the bitter pill so well, he makes a meal out of it.

Dark Stories from a Very Possible Future 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I first read a short story by Paolo Bacigalupi in High Country News. It was "The Tamarisk Hunter" about a man named Lolo who removes the weed trees from a water hungry Southwest and who has a darker secret. It was well written and very plausible to those who know the tamarisk (or saltcedar, as it is also called) and the water problems of the southwestern border states. I then found this collection titled "Pump Six and Other Stories" in the local library.

These are dark stories of a Dalai Lama in a datacube, a modified human, a world of scavengers, a cultural conflict, genetically engineered life forms, population crises, life in a future Thailand, murder and a polluted world, as well as the tamarisk hunter. To a large degree these are cautionary tales - tales of what might be, if we take no action or take the wrong action. The biggest fear is that they will happen despite anything we can do and the author does not relieve us of this fear. Finally, these are finely crafted stories of the very near and far futures of human existence and they will leave you very uneasy. For all that, they are well worth the reading.

Editorial Review:

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning, and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience. The eleven stories in Pump Six represent the best Paolo's work, including the Hugo nominee "Yellow Card Man," the nebula and Hugo nominated story "The People of Sand and Slag," and the Sturgeon Award-winning story "The Calorie Man."

Year's Best SF 13 (Year's Best Sf)

David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Eos Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $2.24

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( H ) -> Hartwell, David G.
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

hartwell's folly 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I am seriously considering avoiding anthologies edited by Hartwell. I opened his book and about 2 pages in, they have a whole page
ranting about how someone deposited a fraudulent check drawn on their (his) bank account. That' really too bad, but what in the heck is this doing in a years best anthology? His pick for best SF short story of the year is some mediocre story by his personal god, gene wolfe, which is for the most part incoherent. Then in the preface to the greg egan story 'preface', hartwell says "he tends to write what we sometimes call neuropsych hard sf". Well, jolly good for you mr.hartwell, I applaud that amazing creation of a new genre of science fiction. How dumb do you think
most sf readers are?
There are only about 5 stories in this volume worth reading.
I generally buy this as a time killer until Dozois comes out with his anthology of The Years Best Science Fiction. Maybe it is me, I just came off of a jag reading most of Iain M. Banks books, but a lot of the stories
in Hartwell's anthology are just childish or inane. The story by Nancy Kress was very dismaying - the characters in her story are at best cartoons, which was dismaying considering some of her previous work.
This book is ok if you are really jonesing for some SF, but don't expect to be thrilled.

Editorial Review:

The thirteenth annual collection of the previous year's finest short-form sf is at hand. Once again, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have gathered together a stunning array of science fiction that spans a veritable universe of astonishing visions and bold ideas. Hitherto unexplored galaxies of the mind are courageously traversed by some of the most exciting new talents in the field—while well-established masters rocket to remarkable new heights of artistry and originality. The stars are closer and more breathtaking than ever before—and a miraculous future now rests in your hands—within the pages of Year's Best SF 13.

Schismatrix Plus (Complete Shapers-Mechanists Universe)

Bruce Sterling

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ace Trade Amazon Marketplace: 67 new & used starting at $0.22

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( S ) -> Sterling, Bruce

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Includes The Novel Schismatrix And (Plus) All Related Stories, 2-1/2 Stars 2 out of 5 stars.
8 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I really wanted to like this novel. It had a clever name, an amalgamation of the Great Schism that separate Catholicism and Protestantism, and Matrix, like the movie with the same title. (Note: the novel is pronounced Shiz-mat-rix, with a short a, rhymes with schematics). A classic cyberpunk title. However, this novel is anything but user-friendly. I don't know if pharmaceuticals are needed for appreciating this novel, or if the author used them when frantically writing, in between vacuuming the roof of his house and such. The novel moves at such a frantic pace that within one sentence the entire setting can change and this happens more than a few times. It's difficult to know the point of the plot; perhaps that life is worth living. The novel is a cross between Heinlein's Time Enough For Love, Bester's The Stars My Destination, and petting a sea urchin.

In a shocking act of consideration, the publishers have included all of Sterling stories related to the Shaper-Mechanist War. That would be the full length novel, plus five stories. The stories were written before the novel, which was the order I read them in, although after reading the novel last, I can't say whether or not to recommend reading in that order. The stories are interesting and enjoyable. In fact Sterling seems to excel with his short stories. His story "Flowers of Edo" is where I got interested in his style. I would recommend his short stories, but this novel is another matter.

Humanity has balkanized into a number of factions, with the Shapers and Mechanists being the most powerful. The Shapers have reshaped their bodies genetically. This includes such drastic things as replacing all the E. Coli in their intestines with enzymes. The Mechanists are like the Borg of Star Trek, they use mechanical prosthetics to enhance themselves. If you think the Mechanists are the cleaner of the two, think again. Cockroaches and bacteria are prevalent in Mechanist environments. Every five years the Mechanists need to have the bacterial growth scraped and UV-burned off their skin. That's one thing prevalent throughout his writings, this sort of creepiness. Expect more of it.

However, don't let the war make you think this is some majestic good vs. evil epic space war. Battles are mostly low key. There is lot's of narration and dialog. Sterling self-claims his crammed prose. No kidding. Adjectives rule supreme in this novel; as many as possible are crammed into each sentence. If one would do a histogram of adjectives, this novel would be on the far right tail of the bell curve. Here's an excerpt: " He always wore his spacesuit, [something something], and [multiple length modifiers] body odor came through its [multiple adjectives] collar with [multiple adjectives] pungency." Sentences like this go on and on and on and on and on and on and on throughout the novel. And there's no shortage of hyphenated words, like long-fermented, eye-watering. On one page, there were no less than 11 hyphenated words, plus one triple one.

Similar to the prosthetics of the Borg, the sentences themselves seem interchangeable. Here's another excerpt of a dialogue:
"What was your brigade?
I'm no Cataclyst.
I have your weapon here.
Constantine pulled a ... vial from his ... jacket ..."
You may as well interchange your own sentences: `The tree fell in the forest; it made no sound' or `the space ship went into orbit; it's boots were muddy.' Give it a try. It'll make as much sense.

There are times when the novel seems profound. I would find myself backtracking at times to understand some point, and I would go back 5, then 10, then 20 pages to try to understand something and would just give up and go back to where I was. It's hard to say you read this novel, it's more like your eyes glance over the words, and on occasion you absorb some of it. Since the novel fluctuates from the profound to the mundane an average of 2-1/2 stars seemed appropriate.

Editorial Review:

Bruce Sterling has called his Shaper/Mechanist novel Schismatrix "my favorite among my books." It is a detailed history of a spacefaring humanity divided into two camps: The Shapers, who prefer genetic enhancements, and the Mechanists, who rely on prosthetics. Sterling also published five Shaper/Mechanist stories between 1982-84, which have been collected with the novel in this compendium volume. This book represents the definitive collection of what is arguably Sterling's most intense work, offering a hard, gritty look at humanity as it pushes and claws its way to the stars.

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

Harlan Ellison

List Price: $29.95 By: Morpheus International Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $25.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( E ) -> Ellison, Harlan
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Short Stories

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

I Have No Book, And I Must Read 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

For the uninitiated or causal reader, "The Essential Ellison" represents the best compilation of the author's works between two covers. With 1400 + stories under his belt, Harlan Ellison is one of the most prolific writers of any genre of fiction. The amazing thing is that all of them are good. Even better, most of them are great. And better yet, a good number of them are some of the best short stories written in the last fifty years. Though classified as a sci-fi author, Ellison writes fierce and barbed tales about the alienation of the individual in modern life, whether it's the guise of sci-fi, fantasy, or non-genre fiction. With defiant tone, Ellison passionately defends the individual against the impersonal machinations of ridged, authoritarian systems and their apathetic leaders. Unrelenting and sincere, Ellison's prose and characters take a stand for those who can't or won't. "The Essential Ellison" contains most of the author's greatest stories. From the spiritual longing of "Grail" to the utter insanity of "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream"; from the mute hopelessness of "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" to the phantasmagorical absurdity of "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man"; from the prophetic frustration of "Along the Scenic Route" to the rebellious shriek of "A Boy and His Dog." Mercurial and pointed, purposeful and thought-provoking, Ellison rarely writes for bemusement's sake alone. And like all great authors, the reader leaves a story with more than they started with. So, if you're tired of the same ol' sci-fi/fantasy story of "an ambitious young farm lad who is really of noble birth assembles a cadre of trusted misfit warriors and does battle with the great evil that threatens to envelop the world" rot, then I whole-heartedly suggest you check out the work of Harlan Ellison.

Editorial Review:

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.