Grasping for the Wind

Book Review: Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison

Title: Dangerous Visions
Author: Harlan Ellison (ed.)
Publish Date: 2002
Personal Rating: 3.5/5

Dangerous Visions, edited by premier sci-fi author Harlan Ellison, is the 1967 anthology of some of the most interesting and strange science fiction ever published. Several of the short stories went on to win Hugo and/or Nebula awards, among other lesser prizes.

Collected at the cusp of the Vietnam War, the end of legally sanctioned segregation, and the growing attacks on the traditional values of Americans (by their children), Dangerous Visions sought to revolutionize the science fiction genre in much the same way. The 33 stories collected by Ellison reflect the radically changing social landscape of the 1960s. From celebrations of drug culture, to praises of the new psychological methods, Dangerous Visions attempted to challenge the pulp magazine sanitized writing that had come before.

I picked up at a library book sale the 35th anniversary edition of this much lauded book. Several of the stories were fascinating, some were trash or so esoteric as to be impossible to understand, and the forwards and afterwards of each story (a rare thing in these days of letting stories stand on their own) provided insight into the socially tumultuous generation that was my father’s.

All of the stories attempt to challenge social conventions. This, of course, meant challenging the ideals of sex in marriage only, abortion as sin, education in the classical sense, religion as presented by Christianity, and the origin of evil. Humanism and Atheism as the new religions seems to be prevalent among the authors, but then that is to be expected of science fiction authors.

The stories are valuable in and of themselves as an insight into the times, and also as enjoyable reads. While “Riders of the Purple Wage” by Philip Jose Farmer (Hugo award winner) made little sense to me, that later story of “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?” by Damon Knight was able to challenge my thinking.

The delving in to sexuality of “If all Men Were Brothers, Would you Let One Marry Your Sister?” by Theodore Sturgeon asked a valid question for the sexually promiscuous age. “Gonna Roll Them Bones” by Fritz Leiber (Hugo and Nebula award winner) was frightening and stretching in its writing style and content, very different from the traditional science fiction stories.

Essentially most of the stories were good. Some tried to be too creative in writing style, and the form made its intent difficult to understand (except for those readers under the influence of drugs) and uninteresting to this reader.

Others did write about their Dangerous Visions in understandable ways, making their points clearly, and these I think have the most enduring value. Nonetheless, Ellison collected a truly unparalleled anthology of science fiction. No matter what your science fiction taste, this book will stretch you, (and, in my case, occasionally cause headaches). Some of the stories were scary or full of dark premonition, a few hopeful, but most just made this reader sit up and ask himself “what if?”

A list of the stories included can be found after the jump.

* Evensong by Lester del Rey
* Flies by Robert Silverberg
* The Day After the Day the Martians Came by Frederik Pohl
* Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip José Farmer (Hugo Award for best novella)
* The Malley System by Miriam Allen deFord
* A Toy for Juliette by Robert Bloch
* The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World by Harlan Ellison
* The Night That All Time Broke Out by Brian W. Aldiss
* The Man Who Went to the Moon — Twice by Howard Rodman
* Faith of our Fathers by Philip K. Dick
* The Jigsaw Man by Larry Niven
* Gonna Roll the Bones by Fritz Leiber (Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette)
* Lord Randy, My Son by Joe L. Hensley
* Eutopia by Poul Anderson
* Incident in Moderan and The Escaping by David R. Bunch
* The Doll-House by James Cross
* Sex and/or Mr. Morrison by Carol Emshwiller
* Shall the Dust Praise Thee? by Damon Knight
* If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister? by Theodore Sturgeon
* What Happened to Auguste Clarot? by Larry Eisenberg
* Ersatz by Henry Slesar
* Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird by Sonya Dorman
* The Happy Breed by John Sladek
* Encounter with a Hick by Jonathan Brand
* From the Government Printing Office by Kris Neville
* Land of the Great Horses by R. A. Lafferty
* The Recognition by J. G. Ballard
* Judas by John Brunner
* Test to Destruction by Keith Laumer
* Carcinoma Angels by Norman Spinrad
* Auto-da-Fé by Roger Zelazny
* Aye, and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany (Nebula Award for best short story, 1967)

Posted by John on July 23, 2007 02:42 PM | Posted to Science Fiction
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