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An anthology more than half a century in the making, The Last Dangerous Visions is the third and final installment of the legendary science fiction anthology series.
In 1973 celebrated writer and editor Harlan Ellison announced the third and final volume of his unprecedented anthology series, which began with Dangerous Visions and continued with Again, Dangerous Visions. But for reasons undisclosed, The Last Dangerous Visions was never completed.
Now, six years after Ellison’s passing, science fiction’s most famous unpublished book is here. And with it, the heartbreaking true story of the troubled genius behind it.
Provocative and controversial, socially conscious and politically charged, wildly imaginative yet deeply grounded, the thirty-two never-before-published stories, essays, and poems in The Last Dangerous Visions stand as a testament to Ellison’s lifelong pursuit of art, uniting a diverse range of science fiction writers both famous and newly minted, including Max Brooks, Edward Bryant, Cecil Castellucci, James S. A. Corey, Howard Fast, P. C. Hodgell, Dan Simmons, Robert Sheckley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mildred Downey Broxon, and Cory Doctorow, among others.
The historic publication of The Last Dangerous Visions completes the long-awaited final chapter in an incredible literary legacy.
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<br> ASIN : B0CWPLX12S <br> Publisher : Blackstone Publishing, Inc.; HARDCOVER edition (October 1, 2024) <br> Language : Spanish <br> Hardcover : 450 pages <br> ISBN-13 : 979-8212183796 <br> Item Weight : 2.18 pounds <br> Dimensions : 9 x 6 x 1 inches <br>
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johcafra –
A Book About a Book About a Book About
…what could have been three books. I openly lament this.First, a wave of the cap to the successor editor. There’s plenty of him in this TLDV, and in fairness it can well and truly be said the book wouldn’t have happened without him.But one look at the Ellison-typewritten Table of Contents of HIS vision makes me yearn. Okay, I stand accused as a “purist,” and I suppose I appreciate “old science fiction” a little more for reasons I’ve provided among my other Amazon reviews, not the least of which is that I fortuitously grew up with that phase of the genre. Some of those stories appear elsewhere and may be available on-line; I know of at least two databases that can help you locate them.Humor me if I start my reading with the stories by Howard Fast, Ward Moore, Robert Sheckley and A. E. Van Vogt, then the stories by David Brin, Mildred Downey Broxon, Edward Bryant, Steve Herbst, Stephen Robinett (aka Tak Hallus) and Steven Utley. I’ll update this review if the more recent efforts impress me.Some of the closing biographies could do with a tense-check at the least, while the Table of Contents of this TDLV warrants further proofreading. There are illustrations in the spirit if not the style of the Dillons.But if spirit is what you want, then spirit is what you get. If you’re inspired to read the predecessor, Ellison-edited volumes, all the better. The genre does indeed evolve and houses many mansions.
Wayne Klein –
Terrific final volume even if it arrived 50 years late.
It took fifty years for it to arrive. Even the Pony Express would have delivered this quicker than it did as a book. To know why, one must read the book with a pair excellent introduction by writer J. Michael Straczyskii but I’ll give readers the summarized version. During the last couple of decades of Harlan Ellison’s life he was ill. Suffering from Bipolar Depression which, along with age, derailed his ability to judge when it was appropriate to do things and when not to do them, Ellison lost hope and lost the ability to writer for a very long time. Straczynski, who had studied psychology in college told Ellison he had what appeared to be BD and that he should seek therapy. He didn’t. For a long, long time he suffered with it. It robbed him of his ability to writer and, for Ellison, who saw his entire existence as being a writer, that was like death.Ellison’s father died in front of him at the age of 51. Ellison, once he reached that crossroads age, wondered why he was still here and found himself paralyzed by this. It took the friendship of Straczynski and others who were core friends of Harlan’s to get him going again. Gradually, he returned to writing while suffering from the bouts of depression, mania and other issues that dog those with BD. Eventually, he got on medication and was convinced to see a psychiatrist against his better judgment.Which brings us to “The Last Dangerous Visions”. It sat on Ellison’s shelf every day to remind him to finish it. He just couldn’t during the late 70’s until shortly before his death. Harlan was mercurial talent with a wit that could cut like a diamond on glass. One wonders what Harlan would say that his final work was the one that was impossible for him to complete at the time.The collection features many but not all of the stories that Ellison had assembled ages ago. Some were given back to the original writers, some of the original writers demanded back their work to publish elsewhere (and for those who are curious about the situation there are some accounts out there by the writers involved that one can find online). In the case of others the authors passed away, rights reverted back to writers or their estates and still others just didn’t stand the test of time.Which brings us to this marvelous book. My own theory, aside from Ellison’s mental health struggles, is that he saw this as the last mountain to climb. Not completing it, gave Ellison something to both dread and look forward to so, perhaps, in some way, he saw it as his magnum opus as an editor.There’s little new in the way of Ellison’s writing here. Just his introduction to Edward Bryant’s story and material in JMS’ second introduction that he pulled from work that Ellison had planned to write on his late friend, the actor Sal Mineo.The most recent stories are from David Brin, James S.A. Corey (the authors who wrote “The Expanse” novels and worked on the TV series adaption writing jointly under a single name) among a small slate of other writers. Ellison kept buying stories for the anthology not because he needed them but because he needed to do so.As to the stories themselves, they are well written. Some are obviously better than others, but the cream of the crop here are stellar. One thing of note is that, as JMS notes, there was no finished table of contents for the book because Ellison kept revising it and kept buying stories. JMS went through and selected what he considered the best ones here (sometimes Ellison would buy a story from a friend because he felt obligated to do so not because it was the best story).So, finally, 50 years later we have the final volume of a work that began in the late 1960’s, continued into the early 70’s and concluded in a new century. Harlan Ellison’s work continues to be terrific as a writer. Sure, he wrote some bad stuff (and he would admit it) but his best material still resonates. This is his portal to another world of science fiction, fantasy and other related genres with other voices. It’s a terrific final volume and I salute JMS for completing this and bringing home the final project that had sat collecting dust on Harlan’s shelf for so long.
Jerry Worthington –
All Hype (Positive or Negative) Aside….
First — the downside: As with many others, I can’t help but feel saddened that we never got the full “Ellison treatment” so long anticipated; particularly that 3-volume version that was bruited about for some time many years ago. But, as Straczynski’s “An Ellison Exegesis” makes clear, such was almost certainly inevitable. It hurts, yes, but that is no reason to dismiss the book we DO have. Far from it. While not, perhaps, quite as pyrotechnic in style and manner at times as some of the stories in the first two, what we have here does indeed contain many “dangerous visions”… though some are almost deceptively quiet in tone… on first reading. (More on that in a moment.) I will always miss the vibrancy and sheer narrative force of Ellison’s introductions, had they followed his approach in so much of his work; but (again, more on this in a moment) Mike has not done at all badly here himself, and working under ridiculously difficult circumstances.Now, the upside: As for the stories… they are quite varied in tone and impact, from the almost Bradburyesque “Assignment No. 1″ (not so much in manner as very reminiscent of the type of story which Bradbury — and, to some degree, Heinlein — did so well, that elegiac tale which mourns while it celebrates its subject)… one which creates a very dangerous vision in that, as even the most obtuse of politicians have realized, we have yet to solve, despite the growing numbers of this segment of our populace. It’s a poignant, multilayered story which is deceptively simple, until you let it percolate a bit, and then the true impact hits with the force of a pile-driver.”Hunger” is one which even the stoutest of conservatives would find it hard to object to, given its approach to the subject of ecoterrorism, without letting any side off the hook.The prose-poetic pieces by D. M. Rowles present a range, from a variant of the old “Blind Men and an Elephant” trope to a singeing (yet hilarious) statement on the hypocrisy so prevalent in our concern for “appearances”.Cory Doctorow’s “The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart)” is an impressive performance, at times provokingly funny, at times introspective, at others gently chiding, and overall generally very “on point” about the subject of self-awareness and both its risks and rewards… without being overly romantic in its final analysis on either. (I’ve not read much Doctorow, but am rather impressed with this one.)The story by van Vogt is something that only he could have done, and done so well, and is a valuable addition to anyone’s collection of his work… which is saying something, given THE WEAPON SHOPS OF iSHER (novel), which is one of the best examinations of “the right to bear arms” as well as a prime example of the time-travel paradox with, as Boucher pointed out in his TREASURY OF GREAT SCIENCE FICTION, “quite possibly, the best curtain line in all imaginative fiction”.Ed Bryant’s “War Stories” is also a set of cautionary tales whoch manage to use quite a range of techniques, from the almost journalistically “realistic” to the near-fairy-tale magic of a “Jonah and the Great Fish” to a recipe(!) to address his points.And so on for the rest. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve not yet finished the book, though I’ve about a third to go… but, despite a certain trepidation in approaching it (for the reasons given above), I have been anything but underwhelmed. No, it wasn’t quite what I expected all those years ago… but it has proven well worth the wait, nonetheless.As for the art: Going from the almost Gothic look of the Dillons’ art for DANGEROUS VISIONS and Ed Emshwiller’s very quirky, yet starkly effective approach for AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS, Tim Kirk’s artwork here took some getting used to. However, once that adjustment is made, I must admit that it is as effectifve in its way as each of the previous approaches were in theirs… and the shift seems oddly appropriate for the *feel* of this book, as well. (His endpapers, on the other hand, impressed me strongly from the first glance… an impression which has grown since.I have seen some rather negative comments on J. Michael Straczynski’s job here, as well as how some perceive his writing in general to have been failing for some time… often because of political bias (whether on his part or theirs, I am not sure, given that I myself have not read much by the man, and thus am going on his work on such things as “Babylon-5” and in the present volume. Anent which:The narrative he offers in “An Ellison Exegesis” blows THAT one right out of the water. Almost too-perfectly structured, it is itself a powerful account as well as having an almost prose-poetic technique at points which is quite impressive, and his reiteration of the theme of “shibboleth” is itself a form of tribute (it strikes me) to many of Harlan’s own essays, with their seemingly perambulating but always, in the end, tightly unified structure… something he carries over into the brief introductions and afterwords to each story for which he provides them (the exception being that bearing Ellison’s own introduction to Ed Bryant’s “War Stories”) skillfully morphing his tenses in a manner appropriate to sff so that we get a view of the writing and the author in capsule form… concentrated, but really quite brilliantly done.There is a lot more I could say about this book; but suffice to say that I find it a very fitting De Capo to the Dangerous Visions legacy. It isn’t quite what we would have got from Ellison himself, but Ellison d’s presence still, in some ways, permeates the book; yet it also serves as a tribute to the memory of a friend, a mentor, and one of the most influential figures in imaginative fiction of the twentieth century. It does not shy from recognizing his faults, but neither does it demean him because of them. For those of us, such as myself, who have waited more than half a century for TLDV to see print, we will always mourn what might have been… but what we have should also be treasured for the value it offers, as well. A different sort of thing, yet related, and a fitting offspring to one of the most important concepts in the history of the genre(s).