Most Popular Books by Harlan Ellison

Terrifying tales of teenage gangs and life on the mean streets from the multiple award-winning author of A Boy and His Dog. Remember Charles Bronson stalking the streets of New York blowing holes in muggers in Death Wish? Remember Glenn Ford standing off the vicious juvenile delinquents in Blackboard Jungle? Well, it is more than fifty years and two different worlds from 1955 to now. And something the author of these stories knows that you are scared to admit is that reality and fantasy have flip‐flopped. They have switched places. The stories that scare you today are the ones about rapists and thugs, psychos who will carve you for a dollar and hypes who will bust your head to get fixed. Glenn Ford’s world was yesterday, and Bronson’s is today. And in the stalking midnight of this book, one of America’s top writers, Harlan Ellison, invades the shadows of both!

Eight timeless tales from the master of speculative fiction, featuring the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning story “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” Robert Heinlein says, “This book is raw corn liquor—you should serve a whiskbroom with each shot so the customer can brush the sawdust off after he gets up from the floor.” Perhaps a mooring cable might also be added as necessary equipment for reading these eight wonderful stories. They not only knock you down . . . they raise you to the stars. Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching, gentle, and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths.

The republication of Harlan Ellison''s Movie, the full-length feature film he created when a producer at 20th Century-Fox said to him, "If we gave you the money, and no interference, what sort of movie would you write?" Well, that producer is no longer at 20th, he left the whole entire venue of moviemaking after Harlan Ellison''s Movie was seen by the Suits at the studio. There''s no use even trying to describe what the film is about, except to confirm the long-standing rumor that it contaims a scene in which a 70-foot-tall boll weevil chews and swallows an entire farmhouse and silo on-camera. (It''s Scene 33C.)

The final act of Harlan Ellison''s Hugo and WGA Award-winning Star Trek teleplay! Is James T. Kirk willing to sacrifice the woman he loves, to save the universe as he knows it?! You may have seen the episode, but you only think you know how it ends! From the mind of literary legend Harlan Ellison!

Five stories by master speculative-fiction author Harlan Ellison, adapted to graphic novel format and fully painted in full color by illustrator Ken Steacy. Out of print since 1987, the tales recount mankind''s war with an alien race. Suggested for mature readers.

For the first time ever, a visual presentation of the much-discussed, unrevised, unadulterated version of Harlan Ellison''s award-winning Star Trek teleplay script, ''''The City on the Edge of Forever!'''' This Hugo- and Writer''s Guild of America Award-winning teleplay has been much discussed for decades but only here can you see the story as Mr. Ellison originally intended!

Hemingway said, "A man should never write what he doesn''t know." In the mid-fifties, Harlan Ellison--kicked out of college and hungry to write--went to New York to start his writing career. It was a time of street gangs, rumbles, kids with switchblades and zip guns made from car radio antennas. Ellison was barely out of his teens himself, but he took a phony name, moved into Brooklyn''s dangerous Red Hook section and managed to con his way into a "bopping club." What he experienced (and the time he spent in jail as a result) was the basis for the violent story that Alfred Hitchcock filmed as the first of his hour-long TV dramas...This autobiography is a book whose message you won''t be able to ignore or forget. "Harlan Ellison is the dark prince of American letters, cutting through our corrupted midnight fog with a switchblade prose. He simply must be read." --Pete Hamill "Ellison writes with sensitivity as well as guts--a rare combination." --Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint

“A dynamite piece of storytelling”—the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author turns to musical fiction in a novel of a rock star’s tumultuous career (AllReaders.com). If you thought the only thing Ellison writes is speculative fiction, craziness about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit, or invaders from space who look like pink eggplant and smell like chicken soup, this dynamite novel of the emergent days of rock and roll will turn you around at least three times. No spaceships, no robots, just a nice kid from Louisville named Stag Preston with a voice like an angel, seductive moves like the devil, and an invisible monkey named Success riding him straight to hell . . .

Science fiction-noveller.

Presents a screenplay of Asimov''s classic where the development of robot technology to a state of perfection by future civilizations is explored.

"A major collection of his incomparable, troublemaking, uncompromising, confrontational essays."--V. 3, cover.

A collection of twenty thought-provoking essays from “one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth” (Publishers Weekly). Harlan Ellison—master essayist, gadfly, literary myth figure, and viewer of dark portent—has been, for the greater part of his life, a burr under the saddle of complacency. In this collection, his former assistant and confidante, Marty Clark, has culled from hundreds of rare and un-reprinted works to select twenty wide-ranging essays—nonfiction writings ranging from travelogue to media criticism, literary exploration to personal musing—that demonstrate why the monstre sacre of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen award from PEN International for his journalistic forays.

Harlan Ellison is surely one of the most creative thinkers of our time -- his stories of the fantastic have captured the imaginations of millions of people over the last four decades. In this trade paperback, some of the comics industry''s wildest and most original talents adapt Ellison''s greatest stories to the comic-book format.

Designed as both an introduction to Harlan Ellison''s vast body of work and as a manual for would-be writers, Harlan 101 collects the best of the author''s short fiction, seven essays on the craft of writing, and a collection of rarely seen oddities from Ellison''s extensive archives. This 400-page paperback features: An introduction by New York Times bestseller Neil Gaiman, author of the Hugo Award-winning novels American Gods and The Graveyard Book, and creator of Vertigo Comics'' Sandman series. The first appearance in a widely available Ellison collection of his newest short story-the 2011 Nebula Award-winning "How Interesting: A Tiny Man." Five Hugo Award-winning short stories, including "''Repent, Harlequin '' Said the Ticktockman," "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," "The Deathbird," "Jeffty Is Five," and "Paladin of the Lost Hour." "Snake in the Crypt"-The never-before-republished story that Ellison rewrote to become "The Deathbird." See how this average tale was re-worked into a Hugo Award-winning novelette. The lost ending to "Paladin of the Lost Hour"-This ending only appeared in the very first publication of the short story in the 1985 anthology Universe 15; it has never been reprinted. A disturbing and, as-yet, unfinished short story titled "Pet." Seven informative, yet entertaining essays on the craft of writing (four which have never appeared in an Ellison collection). Plus sixteen other stories-some subtly revised for this publication-spanning Ellison''s career. From the 1950s comes "The Sky is Burning." The 1960s are represented by "All the Sounds of Fear" and "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes." The Ellison of the 1970s appears in "At the Mouse Circus," "Basilisk," "Hindsight: 480 Seconds," "The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge," "Shatterday," "Shoppe Keeper," and "Strange Wine." The 1980s offerings include "Broken Glass," "Grail," "On the Slab," and "Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish," while the 1990s bring forth "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" and "Sensible City."

EXPLORE ELLISON''S TAKE ON THE SCIENCE FICTION WESTERN: Cutter''s World, Ellison''s two-hour 1987 pilot for a Western-tinged science fiction series for CBS (fifteen years before Joss Whedon finally got one on the air with Firefly), tells the story of guilt-ridden 20th century astronaut Ben Cutter''s journey to an alien world, where he and his twelve-year-old son, Mac, must carve out a life for themselves in the perpetual twilight of a world inhabited by two species in conflict: the humanoid vivo, and the kyben (the recurring beings featured in Ellison''s Night and the Enemy story cycle). REDISCOVER THE LOST SHORT STORY AND ABORTED NOVEL THAT BECAME DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND: In keeping with the kyben theme established by Cutter''s World, BRAIN MOVIES, Volume Three digs into the archives hidden within the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars to publish for the first time the short story fragment and aborted novel that evolved into Ellison''s Writers Guild Award-winning teleplay for "Demon With a Glass Hand." Ellison began work on "The Queer File," a short story about a man paid to catalogue strange occurrences, while he was living in New York City in the early 1960s. By early 1964, the story had become a novel titled OBITUARY FOR AN INSTANT. Then, just as Ellison started chapter four, The Outer Limits came calling and the novel''s premise evolved into "Demon With a Glass Hand." READ THE SCRIPT THAT SECURED ELLISON''S TELEVISION CAREER: "Who Killed Alex Debbs?" is the first of Ellison''s four teleplays for the 1960s crime series Burke''s Law and features the titular LAPD Homicide Captain investigating the murder of a Hugh Hefner-inspired publisher. Read the script that landed Ellison his first ongoing gig in Hollywood and led to the hot up-and-comer being listed as one of Cosmpolitan''s six most eligible bachelors. PUT YOURSELF IN THE STORY EDITOR''S CHAIR AND PREPARE TO EXPERIENCE AN ELLISON PITCH: "The Ship That Kills" is a "lost episode" of the 1974 series The Manhunter, starring Ken Howard. For years, Ellison wondered why his segment of the depression-era action series never went before the cameras. Now, you can read his storyline-written with the same energy with which he verbally pitched it to the story editor-and discover, in the editor''s notes, the reason that the episode was never made. Cover art by 15-time Hugo Award winner and Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee Michael Whelan.

In these stories Harlan Ellison outdoes himself, rampaging like a mad thing through love, hate, lost childhood, and into such bizarre subjects as the problems of blue-skinned, eleven-armed Yiddish aliens, what it''s like to witness the end of the world and what happens on the day the planet Earth swallows Barbra Streisand. Oh yeah, this one''s a doozy!

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards: A science fiction classic about an antiestablishment rebel set on overthrowing the totalitarian society of the future. One of science fiction’s most antiestablishment authors rails against the accepted order while questioning blind obedience to the state in this unique pairing of short story and essay. “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” is set in a dystopian future society in which time is regulated by a heavy bureaucratic hand known as the Ticktockman. The rebellious Everett C. Marm flouts convention, masquerading as the anarchic Harlequin, disrupting the precise schedule with bullhorns and jellybeans in a world where being late is nothing short of a crime. But when his love, Pretty Alice, betrays Everett out of a desire to return to the punctuality to which she is programmed, he is forced to face the Ticktockman and his gauntlet of consequences. The bonus essay included in this volume, “Stealing Tomorrow,” is a hard-to-find Harlan Ellison masterwork, an exploration of the rebellious nature of the writer’s soul. Waxing poetic on humankind’s intellectual capabilities versus its emotional shortcomings, the author depicts an inner self that guides his words against the established bureaucracies, assuring us that the intent of his soul is to “come lumbering into town on a pink-and-yellow elephant, fast as Pegasus, and throw down on the established order.” Winner of the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” has become one of the most reprinted short stories in the English language. Fans of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will delight in this antiestablishment vision of a Big Brother society and the rebel determined to take it down. The perfect complement, “Stealing Tomorrow” is a hidden gem that reinforces Ellison’s belief in humankind’s inner nobility and the necessity to buck totalitarian forces that hamper our steady evolution.

"Contains fourteen nicely varied stories by some of the top names in genre publishing and several new up-and-comers"--Publisher''s description.

With characteristic fits of brilliance and irreverence, Ellison, in his most outrageous and wildly imaginative collection to date, cross cuts the political and humorous, the domestic and cosmic, and combines ancient history, modern morality, and the surreal.

Harlan Ellison''s Hugo and WGA Award-winning teleplay, visualized for the first time! Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Yeoman Rand return to the Enterprise following their first encounter with the Guardians of Forever, only to find a darker, more vicious crew of renegades awaiting them! Can they return the timestream to its proper state? And will they even survive long enough to try?

“An excellent collection” of vampire stories, from authors such as Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Gahan Wilson, Tanith Lee, and Fritz Leiber (Publishers Weekly). Renowned editor Ellen Datlow has gathered seventeen variations on vampirism ranging from classically Gothic to postmodern satire, from horrific to erotic. These stories reflect the evolution of vampire literature from Bram Stoker to Anne Rice and beyond, resulting in a deeper exploration of their inner lives. Expanding the concept of vampirism to include the draining of a person’s will or life force, Datlow’s collection transcends the traditional “black capes and teeth marks on the neck” to reinvent an eternally fascinating subgenre of horror. In Harlan Ellison’s “Try a Dull Knife,” an empath stumbles bleeding into a nightclub, on the run from emotional vampires. A Broadway actress steals the emotions of her fellow performers in “. . . To Feel Another’s Woe” by Chet Williamson. And in “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be,” Gahan Wilson offers his own surreal twist on Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” as two strangers on a beach lure intoxicated picnickers to a different kind of picnic . . . Blood Is Not Enough includes contributions by Dan Simmons, Gahan Wilson, Garry Kilworth, Harlan Ellison, Scott Baker, Leonid Andreyev, Harvey Jacobs, S. N. Dyer, Edward Bryant, Fritz Leiber, Tanith Lee, Susan Casper, Steve Rasnic Tem, Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, Chet Williamson, Joe Haldeman, and Pat Cadigan.

Disenchanted attorney Lee Kraiter travels to the roof of the world, where he discovers the secrets of The Dark Forces in an unfilmed pilot created by Harlan Ellison in 1972. "It steals righteously from Lost Horizon and the marvelous works of H.P. Lovecraft and the caveats of Charles Fort and even the Dr. Strange comics (with a nod to Billy Batson, Captain Marvel, and the old wizard Shazam)," exclaimed Ellison in his NBC-TV pitch. And if Kraiter''s magical exploits don''t satisfy your crime-fighting desires, checkout Ellison''s unproduced Batman outline pitting the dynamic duo against Two-Face. Still not enough? How about an episode of The Rat Patrol guest starring der Fuhrer? Maybe Ellison''s original outline for "Crypt" from Logan''s Run? Still not satisfied? Why not discover "Who Killed Andy Zygmunt?" in Ellison''s third script for Burke''s Law? Or, you could plunge back to the beginning of Ellison''s tv career with his first-ever teleplay: an installment of the skydiving series Ripcord, Ellison''s heartfelt homage to a Hemingway who had just suicided. The scripts in this book were reproduced from Harlan Ellison''s file copies. The pages originated on a manual typewriter, hence the idiosyncrasies that set them apart from the sanitized, word-processed pages of today.

The most honored anthology of fantastic fiction ever published featuring the works of such luminaries as: Isaac Asimov * Robert Silverberg * Philip Jos, Farmer * Robert Bloch * Philip K. Dick * Larry Niven * Fritz Leiber * Poul Anderson * Damon Knight * J.G. Ballard * John Brunner * Frederik pohl * Roger Zelazny

Presents the complete script for one of the most popular episodes of "Star Trek" as it was originally written--before it was radically altered for filming--and includes commentary by the author on the transformation of his story and his decades-long feud with Gene Roddenberry over the story''s presentation.

The founders of modern literary fancy deserve their own place in the light. The Borealis Legends line is a tribute to the creators of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres as we know them today.