Synopses & Reviews
Harlan Ellison celebrates four decades of writing and publishes his seventieth book, this critically acclaimed, wildly imaginative, and outrageously creative collection. The award-winning novella Mefisto in Onyx is the centerpiece, surrounded by screenplays, an introduction by the author, interspersed segments of autobiographical narrative, and such provocatively titled entries as “The Man Who Rowed Columbus Ashore,” “Anywhere But Here, With Anybody But You,” “Crazy As a Soup Sandwich,” “Chatting With Anubis,” “The Dragon on the Bookshelf,” (written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg), “The Dreams a Nightmare Dreams,” “Pulling Hard Time,” and “Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral.”
About the Author
Harlan Ellison has been called “one of the great living American short story writers” by the Washington Post. In a career spanning more than fifty years, he has won more awards than any other living fantasist. Ellison has written or edited seventy-four books; more than seventeen hundred stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns; two dozen teleplays; and one dozen motion pictures. He has won the Hugo Award eight and a half times (shared once); the Nebula Award three times; the Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association, five times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996); the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice; the Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award twice; two Audie Awards (for the best in audio recordings); and he was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writers’ union. He was presented with the first Living Legend Award by the International Horror Critics at the 1995 World Horror Convention. Ellison is the only author in Hollywood ever to win the Writers Guild of America award for Outstanding Teleplay (solo work) four times, most recently for “Paladin of the Lost Hour,” his Twilight Zone episode that was Danny Kaye’s final role, in 1987. In 2006, Ellison was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Dreams With Sharp Teeth, the documentary chronicling his life and works, was released on DVD in May 2009.