Sunday 1 January 2012

#97. DANGEROUS VISIONS Edited By Harlan Ellison

Published : 1967
Pages : 598
Overall Mark : 8/10

Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave movement and almost single-handedly changed the way readers thought about science fiction.

Included in this collection of 33 stories are 7 winners and 13 nominees for the prestigious Hugo and Nebula Awards, including Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Brian W, Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany and Ellison himself.

HARLAN ELLISON (1934-)
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Harlan Ellison has written and edited more than 75 books in a career spanning over forty years. He is seen as one of the defining authors of the New Wave SF writing movement in the 1960s and wrote scripts for TV shows such as The Outer Limits and Star Trek, including the renowned episode ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’.

VERDICT
There are some great short stories in this enlightening collection, but the first few are pretty week. My advice would be to skip through the first few stories and start with the Robert Bloch story which was pretty good. Sci-fi fans will love some of the gems, written by some of the greats of the 60s, and it's also nice to see what kind of stories were frowned upon by society back then - they'd probably be perfectly acceptable in this day and age.