The Complete Dangerous Visions
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The Complete
Dangerous Visions
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Title Page
About “Dangerous Visions”
About Harlan Ellison
Evensong - Lester del Rey
Flies - Robert Silverberg
The Day After the Day the Martians Came - Frederik Pohl
Riders of the Purple Wage - Philip José Farmer
The Malley System - Miriam Allen deFord
A Toy for Juliette - Robert Bloch
The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World - Harlan Ellison
The Night that All Time Broke Out - Brian W. Aldiss
The Man Who Went to the Moon—Twice - Howard Rodman
Faith of Our Fathers - Philip K. Dick
The Jigsaw Man - Larry Niven
Gonna Roll Them Bones - Fritz Leiber
Lord Randy, My Son - Joe L. Hensley
Eutopia - Poul Anderson
Incident in Moderan - David R. Bunch
The Escaping - David R. Bunch
The Doll-House - James Cross
Sex and/or Mr. Morrison - Carol Emshwiller
Shall the Dust Praise Thee? - Damon Knight
If All Men Were Brothers . . . - Theodore Sturgeon
What Happened to Auguste Clarot? - Larry Eisenberg
Ersatz - Henry Slesar
Go . . . Said the Bird - Sonya Dorman
The Happy Breed - John T. Sladek
Encounter with a Hick - Jonathan Brand
From the Government Printing Office - Kris Neville
Land of the Great Horses - R.A. Lafferty
The Recognition - J.G. Ballard
Judas - John Brunner
Test to Destruction - Keith Laumer
Carcinoma Angels - Norman Spinrad
Auto-Da-Fé - Roger Zelazny
Aye, and Gomorrah . . . - Samuel R. Delany
Ching Witch! - Ross Rocklynne
The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin
For Value Received - andrew j. offutt
Mathoms from the Time Closet - Gene Wolfe
Time Travel for Pedestrians - Ray Nelson
Christ, Old Student in a New School - Ray Bradbury
King of the Hill - Chad Oliver
The 10:00 Report is Brought to You By . . . - Edward Bryant
The Funeral - Kate Wilhelm
Harry the Hare - James B. Hemesath
When It Changed - Joanna Russ
The Big Space Fuck - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Bounty - T.L. Sherred
Still-Life - K.M. O’Donnell
Stoned Counsel - H.H. Hollis
Monitored Dreams and Strategic Cremations - Bernard Wolfe
With a Finger in My I - David Gerrold
In the Barn - Piers Anthony
Soundless Evening - Lee Hoffman
Blot - Gahan Wilson
The Test-Tube Creature, Afterward - Joan Bernott
And the Sea Like Mirrors - Gregory Benford
Bed Sheets are White - Evelyn Lief
Tissue - James Sallis
Elouise and the Doctors of the Planet Pergamon - Josephine Saxton
Chuck Berry, Won’t You Please Come Home - Ken McCullough
Epiphany for Aliens - David Kerr
Eye of the Beholder - Burt K. Filer
Moth Race - Richard Hill
In re Glover - Leonard Tushnet
Zero Gee - Ben Bova
A Mouse in the Walls of the Global Village - Dean R. Koontz
Getting Along - James Blish (with Judith Ann Lawrence)
Totenbüch - A. Parra (y Figueredo)
Things Lost - Thomas M. Disch
With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on LIttle Old New Alabama - Richard A. Lupoff
Lamia Mutable - M. John Harrison
Last Train to Kankakee - Robin Scott
Empire of the Sun - Andrew Weiner
Ozymandias - Terry Carr
The Milk of Paradise - James Tiptree, Jr.
“Dangerous Visions” is a three-book science fiction short story anthology edited by writer Harlan Ellison. Consisting of Dangerous Visions (published in October 1967); and Again, Dangerous Visions (published in March 1972). A third, and final book in the series, The Last Dangerous Visions, has yet to be published.
Comprised of 74 stories selected by and carefully edited by Ellison, and written by some of the finest writers of the genre. As the titles suggest, many of the stories were considered fairly “edgy”/ground-breaking in style and content for the late-1960s. The books, along with the individual stories and authors, received numerous awards upon publication; and garnering Harlan Ellison two special Hugo Awards for his editing.
Yet, all this doesn’t begin to explain the influence that the books (particularly Dangerous Visions) have had over the years. The anthologies are largely acknowledged as starting the “new wave” of science fiction that developed after that “golden age” era.
Put simply, the “Dangerous Visions” books are a landmark in science fiction. Even after 50 years in print the collections still have the magic, the ingenuity; and above all, some of finest short stories found in any anthology.
Dangerous Visions
A path-breaking collection, Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave science fiction movement, particularly in its depiction of sex in science fiction. Writer/editor Al Sarrantoni writes how Dangerous Visions “almost single-handedly . . . changed the way readers thought about science fiction.”
Contributors to the volume included 20 authors who had won, or would win, a Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, or BSFA award, and 16 with multiple such awards. Ellison introduced the anthology both collectively and individually while authors provided afterwords to their own stories.
The stories and the anthology itself were nominated for and received many awards. “Gonna Roll the Bones” by Fritz Leiber received both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for Best novelette, whilst Philip K. Dick’s submission “Faith of Our Fathers” was a nominee for the Hugo in the same category. Philip Jose Farmer tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novella for “Riders of the Purple Wage”. Samuel R. Delany won the Nebula for Best Short Story for “Aye, and Gomorrah . . .” Harlan Ellison received a special citation at the 26th World SF Convention for editing “the most significant and controversial SF book published in 1967.”
Again, Dangerous Visions
Dangerous Visions was followed by an even larger 1972 sequel, Again, Dangerous Visions.
Like its predecessor, Again, Dangerous Visions and the stories within it received many awards. “The Word for World is Forest”, by Ursula K. Le Guin, won a Hugo for Best Novella. “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. For a second time, Harlan Ellison received a special Hugo for editing the anthology.
The Last Dangerous Visions
The projected third collection, The Last Dangerous Visions, was started, but controversially remains unpublished. The final book has become something of a legend as science fiction’s most famous unpublished book. It was originally announced for publication in 1973, but other work demanded Ellison’s attention and the anthology has not seen print to date. He has come under criticism for his treatment of some writers who submitted their stories to him, whom some estimate to number nearly 150 (and many of whom have died in the ensuing more than four decades since the anthology was first announced). In 1993 Ellison threatened to sue New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) for publ
ishing “Himself in Anachron”, a short story written by Cordwainer Smith and sold to Ellison for the book by his widow, but later reached an amicable settlement. British SF author Christopher Priest critiqued Ellison’s editorial practices in a widely disseminated article titled “The Book on the Edge of Forever”. Priest documented a half-dozen instances in which Ellison promised TLDV would appear within a year of the statement, but did not fulfill those promises. Ellison has a record of fulfilling obligations in other instances, including to writers whose stories he solicited, and has expressed outrage at other editors who have displayed poor practices.
Harlan Jay Ellison was born May 27, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a writer of short stories, novels, essays, and television and film scripts. Though he has eschewed genre categorization himself, his work has most frequently been labeled science fiction.
Harlan Ellison briefly attended the Ohio State University and held a variety of jobs until enlisting in the US Army. After separating from the Army in 1959, he edited Rogue magazine (1959–60) and founded Regency Books press (1960) before becoming a successful television scriptwriter. His first novel, Rumble (1958; later republished as Web of the City), chronicles a young man’s efforts to leave a Brooklyn street gang. Ellison conducted field research to write the book, associating with an actual gang for several months. He documented those experiences in Memos from Purgatory (1961), which was later adapted (1964) as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. His early fiction was collected in such volumes as The Deadly Streets (1958), Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation (1961), et al.
Harlan Ellison’s reputation as an important science-fiction writer rests on such short stories as “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965), “A Boy and His Dog” (1969), and several others, including those in his collections I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967) and The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969), as well as several others.
In his sui generis fictions, Ellison erected alternate (and often bizarre) worlds populated by characters that ranged from telepathic canines to malignant artificial intelligence entities. Ellison’s preoccupation with morality was much in evidence in those tales, despite their bleakly humorous speculations about the consequences of technological advancement and human hubris.
As an editor, Harlan Ellison published several important anthologies. For each of the stories he commissioned for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972), he added a personal introductory essay that reveals as much about himself as it does about the work in question.
Harlan Ellison’s disputatious personality was legendary among science-fiction aficionados. He was as caustic and pugnacious in person as he was on the page—a confrontation with Frank Sinatra is recorded in the famed Esquire profile “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”; he settled out of court over allegations that James Cameron had plagiarized elements of his work in writing the screenplay for The Terminator (1984); and he once sent a dead gopher to a publisher who violated a clause in his contract. He frequently mocked his own fractious tendencies and misanthropic attitudes, indicating a more-humanist worldview than his ornery disposition might initially have suggested. His flamboyance was on full display in the documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth, released in 2008 after more than 25 years of filming.
Harlan Ellison has received multiple Hugo and Nebula awards for his short fiction editing and non-fiction.
EVENSONG
Lester del Rey
Introduction
I have chosen Lester del Rey to lead off the distinguished parade of authors in this anthology for several reasons. First, because . . . no, let me give the second reason first, because the first reason is strictly personal. Second, because the Guest of Honor at the 25th Annual World Science Fiction Convention, being held in New York City as this book is published, is Lester del Rey. The Convention’s honoring of Lester, and the smaller honor of starting this book, are only piddles among the glory owing Lester, a debt long in arrears. Lester is one of the few “giants” of the field whose reputation rests not merely on one or two brilliant stories written twenty-five years ago, but on a massive body of work that has grown in versatility and originality with every new addition. Few men in the genre can be considered as seminal an influence as del Rey. Thus, the honors are tiny indeed.
But the first reason is a purely personal one. Lester was responsible for my becoming a professional writer, in many ways (an act that has left him open to unnecessary vilification; I assure you there was no kindness involved; that it would work out this way Lester could never have known). When I arrived in New York in 1955, fresh from having been ejected by Ohio State University, he and his lovely wife Ewie took me into their home in Red Bank, New Jersey, and under the sadistic lash of Lester’s seemingly untiring tutelage (a kind of educational death-of-a-thousand-unkind-cuts Lester assured me would ripen my talent, strengthen my character and tone up my complexion), I began to understand the rudiments of my craft. For it seems to me, even now, on reflection of over ten years, that of all the writers in this field only a few—and Lester the most prominent of that few—can explain what makes good writing. He is the living, snarling refutation of the canard that those who can’t do, teach. His skill as an editor, anthologist, critic and teacher stems directly from his muscularity as a writer.
It has been harshly said of Lester that, once planted, he will argue with the worms for possession of his carcass. Anyone who has ever been ranked across from del Rey in an argument will nod understandingly. And I submit ranked, for Lester is the fairest of men: he will not go for top-point efficiency in a discussion unless the odds are equal: about seven to one. I have never seen him lose an argument. No matter what your subject, no matter if you are the world’s only authority on the topic, del Rey will command an arsenal of facts and theories so inexhaustible and formidable, defeat is assured you. I have seen strong men wither before del Rey. Harridans and shrikes he literally strips naked and sends squalling into toilets. He ranges somewhere around five and a half feet tall, has wispy “baby hair” he finds difficult to comb, wears glasses only slightly thicker than the bottom of a Dr. Pepper bottle, and is powered by some supernatural force the manufacturers of the Pacemaker ought to consider for their machines.
Lester del Rey was born R. Alvarez del Rey, on a tenant farm in Minnesota, in 1915. He has spent most of his life in Eastern cities though close acquaintances occasionally hear him murmur about his father, who was a devoted evolutionist in the boondocks. He has acted as an agent, writing teacher and plot doctor, and is circumspect about the (obviously) endless string of odd jobs he held before becoming a full-time writer thirty years ago. Lester is one of the few writers who can talk incessantly and not let it become a block to his writing the stories he tells. He has talked almost steadily for the past thirty years in bull sessions, lectures, pulpits, writers’ conferences, television and over two thousand hours on Manhattan’s Long John Nebel show, where he has consistently played the role of the Voice of Sanity. His first story was “The Faithful”, sold to Astounding Science Fiction in 1937. His books are much too numerous to catalogue, chiefly because he has ten thousand pseudonyms and pantherishly clevers the bad ones under phony names.
Peculiarly, this first story in the book was the last one received. Among the first ten writers I contacted for this project, Lester was quick to assure me he would send along a story in the next few weeks. One year later, almost to the day, I met him at the Cleveland Science Fiction Convention and accused him of flummery. He assured me the story had gone out months before, that he had heard nothing about it and so had assumed I didn’t want it. This from a professional whose attitude on stories—as imparted to me a decade ago—is to keep the manuscripts in motion till they are bought. Writing for the trunk is masturbation, so saith del Rey. After I returned to Los Angeles from the Convention, “Evensong” came in, with a whey-faced note from del Rey saying he was sending it along just to prove it had been written all the time. He
also included an afterword, at my request. One of the fillips I intended to include in this anthology was a few post-fiction comments by the authors, anent their feelings about the story, or their view of why it was a ‘‘dangerous” vision, or how they felt about speculative writing, or their audience, or their place in the Universe . . . in other words, anything they felt they might want to say, to establish that rare writer-to-reader liaison. You will find one each of these afterwords following each story, but Lester’s comments about the afterword seem apropos at the outset, for they reflect, in fact, the attitude of many of the authors here, about the act of afterwording. He said:
“The afterword isn’t very bright or amusing, I’m afraid. But I’d pretty much wrapped up what I wanted to say in the story itself. So I simply gave the so-called critics a few words to look up in the dictionary and gnaw over learnedly. I felt that they should at least be told that there is such a form as allegory, even though they may not understand the difference between that and simple fantasy. I’ve always thought a story must stand by itself, and that the writer behind it is of no consequence to its merits. (And I did so have a carbon from which to send this copy of the story I already sent, I did, I did, idid, ididid. . . .)”
Evensong
By the time he reached the surface of the little planet, even the dregs of his power were drained. Now he rested, drawing reluctant strength slowly from the yellow sun that shone on the greensward around him. His senses were dim with an ultimate fatigue, but the fear he had learned from the Usurpers drove them outward, seeking a further hint of sanctuary.
It was a peaceful world, he realized, and the fear thickened in him at the discovery. In his younger days, he had cherished a multitude of worlds where the game of life’s ebb and flow could be played to the hilt. It had been a lusty universe to roam then. But the Usurpers could brook no rivals to their own outreaching lust. The very peace and order here meant that this world had once been theirs.
He tested for them gingerly while the merest whisper of strength poured into him. None were here now. He could have sensed the pressure of their close presence at once, and there was no trace of that. The even grassland swept in rolling meadows and swales to the distant hills. There were marble structures in the distance, sparkling whitely in the late sunlight, but they were empty, their unknown purpose altered to no more than decoration now upon this abandoned planet. His attention swept back, across a stream to the other side of the wide valley.