Synopses & Reviews
With Slippage, his most outrageous and wildly imaginative collection to date, Harlan Ellison celebrates the fortieth anniversary of his career (now in its forty-second year), confirming his position as the dark prince of American letters (as Pete Hamill put it). With characteristic fits of brilliance and irreverence, Ellison writes like an angel - or possibly a certifiable demon - crosscutting the political and humorous, the domestic and cosmic, and commingling ancient history, modern morality, and the surreal. Displayed here are the centerpiece showstopper Mefisto in Onyx, a major, award-winning novella, in which a black mindreader pays a singular and terrifying call on a white serial killer on an Alabama death row; the tour de force The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore, selected for The Best American Short Stories 1993; and Keyboard, a sardonic commentary on our uneasy alliance with the toys of technology, based on a theme provided by Robin Williams. Introducing the
Review
"Hums with a relentless narrative drive." The New York Times
"One of our finest short story writers, regardless of Genre." The San Francisco Chronicle
"Equal parts funny, brazen, sarcastic, and sacrilegious." Dallas Morning News
Synopsis
With this, his best-selling and most critically acclaimed collection ever, Ellison celebrates four decades of brilliant, outrageous writing. The award-winning novella "Mefisto in Onyx" is the centerpiece of an irreverent and wildly imaginative book that the San Diego Union-Tribune called "electrifying...Ellison is back, as unsettling as ever."
About the Author
Harlan Ellison has won countless awards in his literary career, including the Edgar, the Hugo, and the Nebula. He lives in California.
Table of Contents
The fault in my lines -- The man who rowed Christopher Columbus ashore -- Anywhere but here, with anybody but you -- Crazy as a soup sandwich -- Darkness upon the face of the deep -- The pale silver dollar of the moon pays its way and makes change -- The lingering scent of woodsmoke -- The museum on Cyclops Avenue -- Go toward the light -- Mefisto in onyx -- Where I shall dwell in the next world -- Chatting with Anubis -- The few, the proud -- Sensible city -- The dragon on the bookshelf / (written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg) -- Keyboard -- Jane Doe #112 -- The dreams a nightmare dreams -- Pulling hard time -- Scartaris, June 28th -- She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother -- Midnight in the sunken cathedral.