Dangerous Visions

Harlan Ellison

Mar 2024 · Blackstone Publishing

About this ebook

WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY PATTON OSWALT

Dubbed “the most significant and controversial SF book” of its generation, Harlan Ellison’s groundbreaking collection launched an entire subgenre: New Wave science fiction. With contributions from legendary authors and multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, Dangerous Visions returns to print in a stunning new edition perfect for new and returning fans alike.

A landmark short story collection that put the more character-based New Wave science fiction on the map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. Contributing authors include: Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, and Ellison himself.

As relevant now as it was when first published, Dangerous Visions is a phenomenal collection that deserves a place on every bookshelf.

Ratings and reviews

Dated stories that seemed to prioritize "shocking to a 1960s audience", instead of focusing on style, concepts, characterization, or plot. It is the insufferable kind of book that displays great narcissism with its own self-importance and relevance, which isn't shocking considering Harlan Ellison was the editor. Ellison was a sociopathic misogynist narcissist who is likely trying to sue me for libel and defamation over this review. Yes, he was that kind of guy. He was the kind of guy who wrote about aliens, then sued the maker of the movie "alien" for "stealing his ideas" and he somehow won. I admit I liked his short stories when I was young and angry, but now I just find him tedious and insufferable. I thought I would enjoy this but I was wrong. My reading palate has evolved over the years and it seems I have discovered that Ellison sticks in my maw. This is merely a footnote, buy it if you are curious and have money to burn. Otherwise, there are plenty of other great collections.

Ellison's legendary anthology will take you back to a time when speculative fiction had personality and bite. The liberals of yesteryear were sincere and really believed in free speech and open-mindedness. Ellison's vainglorious and misanthropic self-promotion, the terrible filler amid his killer fiction, is here joined by some ultra-bizarre dark phantasy offerings from other excellent purveyors of the perspicaciously perverse. J.G. Ballard's "The Recognition" would make a great short film by David Lynch. Go back in time to an era when Democrats were not minority-stereotyping sheep who wanted their young to have mutilating identity surgery. Ellison was a mean bastard. We need liberals like him today.

About the author

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.

Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Award–winning author of science fiction short stories and novels, including the Ringworld series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Footfall, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle, was a New York Times bestseller.

Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as many short stories. Known for including both mythological characters of different origins as well as elements from real history, Zelazny is perhaps best known for The Chronicles of Amber series. He was awarded the Nebula award three times and the Hugo award six times.

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) was one of the most prolific and popular writers in science fiction. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, as well as many other awards, including the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America for a lifetime of distinguished achievement. With a degree in physics and a wide knowledge of other fields of science, he was noted for building stories on a solid foundation of real science, as well as for being one of the most skilled creators of fast-paced adventure stories. He was author of over one hundred novels and story collections, several hundred short stories, and several mysteries and nonfiction books.

JOHN DRURY CLARK (1907 - 1988) was an American rocket fuel developer, chemist, and science fiction writer. In addition to his work as a scientist, he was instrumental in the broad revival of interest in Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and an influence on the writing of Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, and other sci-fi authors. ISAAC ASIMOV (1920 - 1992) was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. A prolific writer, he published more than 500 books, most notably the science fiction novels I, Robot and Foundation, and the popular science works, Guide to Science and Understanding Physics.

Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Samuel R. Delany, winner of multiple Nebula and Hugo awards, is an acclaimed writer of speculative fiction. In 2002, he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2010, he was awarded the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its thirtieth Grand Master in 2013. For his lifetime contribution to lesbian and gay literature, he was awarded the Bill Whitehead Award.

Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem. From about 1959 until 1969, he edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine, If, winning the Hugo Award for it three years in a row. His writing also won him four Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993. In 2010 he won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, based on the writing on his blog, “The Way the Future Blogs.”

J.G. Ballard (1930-2009) was an English writer of short stories and novels. Several of his best-known works were adapted into successful movies, including Crash, and Empire of the Sun. A continual recipient of critical acclaim, the Times included him in their 2008 list of The 50 Greatest British Writers.

Robert Silverberg’s career stretches back to the pulps and his output is amazing by any standard. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2004 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He has attended every Hugo Awards ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953. He’s authored numerous novels, short stories, and nonfiction books in various genres and categories. He’s also a frequent guest at conventions and a regular columnist for Asimov’s Science Fiction. His major works include Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, The Alien Years, The World Inside, Nightfall and The Positronic Man with Isaac Asimov, Nightwings, and the seven Majipoor Cycle books. Anthologies he’s edited include The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (two volumes), the Alpha and New Dimensions series (both multiple volumes), Universe 1–3 with Karen Haber, Legends I and Legends II, two Nebula Awards anthologies, The Fantasy Hall of Fame (two volumes, the first with Martin H. Greenberg, the second solo), Tales From Super-Science Fiction, Far Horizons, Earthmen and Strangers, and Mutants. The present volume is his forty-eighth anthology as editor.