Dangerous Visions!

I've finally done it. I've finally read all of the 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions edited by the rambunctious Harlan Ellison. For science fiction fans of a certain age this is who's who in the field. It's a crossroads of sorts with plenty of classic names from science fiction's "Golden Age" such as Asimov, Del Rey, Sturgeon, and Pohl. And fresher faces who went on to become a new generation of renowned talents such as Spinrad, Zelazny and Delany. And lots of talents who fall in between such as Farmer, Knight and Dick. The collection garnered two Hugos and two Nebulas for the stories within. Not a bad showing at all for novice editor Harlan Ellison.  

As much as I enjoy Ellison's fiction, I think I prefer his nonfiction better. And this collection offers up some dazzling little essays introducing the various talents. His snark is full on display as he praises and pinches the writers within. Those who are his friends get especially sharp barbs. Each story is also accompanied by an afterword from the author. They range from a single sentence to much larger reflections. 

Here is the table of contents: 

"Foreword 1 - The Second Revolution" by Isaac Asimov'

"Foreword 2 - Harlan and I" by Asimov

"Thirty-Two Soothsayers" (Introduction) by Harlan Ellison

"Evensong" by Lester Del Rey

"Flies" by Robert Silverberg

"The Day After the Martians Came" by Frederick Pohl

"Riders of the Purple Wage" by Phillip Jose Farmer (Hugo for bet novella)

"The Malley System" by Miriam Allen de Ford

"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" 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 Lieber (Hugo and Nebula for best Novelette)

"Lord Randy, My Son" Joe L. Hensley

"Eutopia" by Poul Anderson

"Incident in Moderan" and "The Escaping" by David R. Bunch

"The Doll-House" by Hugh Jones Parry

"Sex and/or Mr. Morrison" by Carol Emshwiller

"Shall the Dust Praise Thee?" Damon Knight

"If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" by Ted Sturgeon

"What Happened to Auguste Clarot?" by Larry Eisenberg

"Ersatz" by Henry Slesar

"Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird" by Sony 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-Fe" by Roger Zelazny

"Aye, and Gormorrah" by Samuel R. Delany (Nebula for best short story)

I haven't the inclination to review every story. But some that stood out were "Eutopia" by Anderson, "The Happy Breed" by Sladek, "Test to Destruction" by Laumer, "The Night that All Time Broke Out" by Aldiss, and "Evensong" by Del Rey. I found all the stories enjoyable in their own way, but I will have to say I'll need to read "Riders of the Purple Wage" by Farmer again to fully grok it. The stories were selected because in most cases they pushed boundaries at a time when boundaries desperately need to be pushed. (Actually, they probably need to be tested all the time.) I wasn't shocked especially by any story, but I'm reading these tales in 2025, over half a century from when they were concocted and first published. That the stories feel fresh at all is a triumph for the collection, but perhaps a sad commentary on society. 

As tall peak as Dangerous Visons was, it's sequel Again, Dangerous Visions is even more daunting. I've already dived into it and expect a report when I get get through with it. That's going to take a spell. 

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The Man In The High Castle!

I've been meaning to read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick for many years and have finally gotten around to doing it. It was at once what I expected and very surprising as well. Residing now comfortably in the 21st Century it's probably difficult if not downright impossible for most folks, save those of us of a certain age, to comprehend the impact of World War II. Now it's just another of those dusty historical events, shoved together with "The Great War" and "The War Between the States". It's been long enough that some of the old poison which invested the enemies of WWII with such awful power has returned to the public discourse. The hatred of the "other" rules the passions of too many people in our society and that hatred will ultimately destroy our society as it did the society of Germany overcome by the Nazi dogma. 

On the off chance you don't know about The Man in the High Castle, the story takes place in an alternate United States which is no longer united. When FDR was assassinated the whole of history was altered and the result was that the Nazis won the war and eventually conquered the Eastern half of the continent. The Japanese took control of the West Coast while in the Rocky Mountains a fragile territory exists not under the control of either foreign power. We follow several characters who are trying to live and prosper in this strange old world of 1962. The story tracks an antiques dealer, a jewelry maker, his estranged wife who teaches judo, a trucker with a dark mission, a venerable Japanese representative, and a mysterious Swede who has a secret that will shake the planet. The titular "Man" from the title is a mysterious figure who wrote a book titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which is a bit of a sensation where it can be sold. It is banned in Germany-controlled regions. It speaks of a world in which the Allies won the war, and the Axis was defeated.

Published in 1962 (the same year it is set) the novel won the Hugo for best novel in 1963. It is of course one of the great classics of science fiction. I've bought it a few times over the decades, but only now have I successfully read this rather short novel. The fault is entirely mine. Dick said he was inspired to some degree by Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore which speculate about a United States in which the Confederacy prevailed. I cannot recommend this novel enough. It shows what life is like under a government which as policy enslaves part of the population and routinely murders others. The utter nihilism of the Nazi philosophy is laid bare, and we get a peek into the foul world such hatred brings to one and all. 

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The Old Blade Runner!

Blade Runner was a remarkable movie for its time. In 1982 science fiction had fallen almost completely under the spell of Star Wars and as successful as that had been it wase getting very tired. A smart dystopian sci-fi movie like Blade Runner injected subsequent films with the ability to get darker which they did with some gusto. Harrison Ford is remarkable in this movie, evoking as much as he ever did that Humphrey Bogart vibe he was able to tap into from time to time. Rutger Hauer was a revelation to me in this movie, stealing the last half of the movie completely with his idiosyncratic presentation of "Roy Baty". Others do wonderful jobs in demanding roles. The biggest star was the world of Blade Runner itself, a grim projection of a future ruled by diminished expectations and besotted with endless rain and gloom. 

The movie was based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I gave this 1968 classic science fiction novel another read before diving into the latest watch of the movie which made it famous. It's mostly here of course, our protagonist Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter and he does seek out and kill wayward androids in a world which is largely left behind as humanity has abandoned the planet to seek its future in space. But in the novel he's married and his later attractions to an android named Rachael have much more grim consequences. The one thing the novel pushes forward which the movie largely ignores is the role of animals in this future society. Much more is made of the fact that the animals have all but expired and they have become strange fetish items which not only are there for mental stability (like today's emotional support animals I suppose) but they are wildly expensive and so have become symbols of financial success. There's a whole religious aspect called "Mercerism" which is not at all mentioned in the movie that's a good thing since it's very hard to fathom at places in Dick's book. 

The director Ridley Scott does a fine job of honing down the story into a noir thriller which the novel is not. He takes the chase and focuses on that aspect, allowing the possible "humanity" of the androids to become the central issue. There has been more than a few revisions and hot debate about the ending of Blade Runner and the version I saw this time was the "Final Cut" which ends with Deckard and Rachael leaving his apartment and then a quick cut to credits. This ending is the one which is best in keeping with the tone of the rest of the movie. I have seen the others and to my mind they undermine the atmosphere of the movie's darkness. Will Deckard and Rachael survive? We don't know, but that's for another movie. And as it turns out, decades later they made another movie.  

Blade Runner 2049 is a deeply flawed movie, but a stunningly beautiful one. The visual gimmicks in this one are more than a match for the original, though the accomplishment in the original is greater since the tools used were more primitive. In the sequel we follow an android "Blade Runner" named "Joe" (eventually) played with typical flat affect by Ryan Gosling who has a holographic girlfriend played by the beautiful Ana de Armas and memories he cannot account for. After a tremendous beginning featuring Dave Batista as an android named Sapper, the movie steadily loses steam over its immense nearly three-hour running time. By the time we get to the denoument, it's hard to care because you're just so eager for it all to end. It's no secret that Harrison Ford shows up in this one as a weary Deckard and the secrets which motivate the movie are good ones. But sadly, the movie just lollygags along and seems to fall in love with its own imagery, allowing the focus to fade too often.

The novel by Philip K. Dick is a great read. The original Blade Runner is a must-see movie which like another apocalyptic movie titled The Road Warrior, transformed the sci-fi cinema of the era. The sequel is for hardcore fans alone. There's nothing missing from the first movie, so there's nothing essential revealed in the second. Time watching it is time lost like "tears in rain". 

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The Web Of Crime!

Audiences have always cottoned to heroes who are resolute and have the courage of their convictions. The Shadow was such a hero, and he was rough and tough and very successful, so much so that imitators came into being. In The Spider, a vintage pulp hero published originally by Popular Publications beginning in the 1930's they found a hero who was not afraid to take the law into his own hands like The Shadow, in fact he was quite ready and willing to hand down death sentences to those he deemed worthy.  The Spider as written by Norvell Page and others is the best of those, following the model but being just different enough to garner his own following. This month I want to spend some time with The Spider and explore his grim menacing world. Thanks to publishers like Moonstone, Baen, Vanguard and others, there is a lot of great Spider material out there, from reprints of the original pulps to new novels and short stories, and even comic book and movie serial adaptations. Below are some of the works I'm hoping to get to this month. 

But The Spider did not fight crime alone. There are plenty of other vigilantes who took a bite out of crime and I'd like to visit and revisit with some of those distinctive agents of justice. See below for a chamber full of options such as Lone Justice, The Black Beetle, Monstermen, and The Dreamwalker. 

And sometimes telling the difference between the good guys (or gals) and the bad ones can be a little difficult. Hardboiled dicks come in all genders it seems as we see with the classic It Rhymes with Lust by Arnold Drake and Matt Baker, Fiction Illustrated's Schlomo Raven by Tom Sutton and Chandler by Jim Steranko, Ms. Tree- Deadline by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty, and Johnny Dynamite by Pete Morisi. 

And crime can strike anywhere, even the "most magical place on the Earth". So, it seems only appropriate to check out the devious doings of Mickey Mouse's arch enemy The Phantom Blot. The Blot debuted in the Mickey Mouse comic strip but proved popular enough to even get his comic book series from Gold Key in the 1960's. 

Crime makes for good anthologies as well as evidenced by DC's Greatest Detective Stories Ever Told and The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics. Both tomes have delightful surprises between their mysterious covers. 

And look for an overview of the early career of Marvel's famous crime crusher, the Punisher. Frank Castle rose to fame in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and took the world by storm, shot by shot. These early tales allow a reader to enjoy the evolution of Marvel's toughest character. 

And I want to take a little time tomorrow to talk about the late great Steve Ditko who gave us two of comics most relentless crime fighters in The Question and Mr. A. Mr. A's stories have most recently been gathered together in the pages of Avenging World. 

And I mentioned Max Allan Collins earlier. He's a fecund writer of mysteries of all kinds and some of the ones I enjoy most are a trio of stories he fashioned which take a look at infamous crimes committed within the comics community, or perhaps might have been. 

And then there's more film such as the hard-nosed Blade Runner which adapts Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick with gritty determination. Also on hand is the somewhat more tongue-in-cheek trio of tales about Trancers which features a tough as nails detective named Jack Deth of all things. Also look for the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a strange movie which has an even more bizarre connection to The Spider. 

That's a lot on my plate this month of Thanksgiving, and there's more I haven't mentioned. But we in America like to eat hearty during this month. So, strap in and come with me down some pretty dark crime alleys at Dojo this month. But be sure to keep your heads down amigos, the bullets are flying. 

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