Edgeworks: The Collected Ellison

The jacket flap sums up this book perfectly, 'Here are two big books in one volume. Each has the word "love" in the title. But don't let that get your hopes up. Yeah, these are stories that sing... but they also draw blood.' That's the core of this book, real love, not the pampered and idealistic stuff that preaches "love will conquer all." This is about love that hurts.This volume is divided into two books, I prefer the second, with all stories on the different kinds of love. My favorites are the two bookend stories that open and close this book. "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" is beautifully crafted and shows how good a short story can be. The last story in the collection, "A Boy and His Dog," is a great way to end the book and the collection. The first book in this volume, although not my favorite, is still very good, and contains stories that reach into different faucets of life, and show the love between people and their different lives.When Shakespeare saw love, he saw the kind that ends in a double suicide, Harlan Ellison hits pretty close to the same nail with this collection. Even though not every story in here is top notch, I still highly recomend this volume for a great look on real love, and for containing some of the best short stories Ellison has written.

Not much to say. Harlan Ellison at his best. Hell, he's ALWAYS at his best. This book contain two Ellison classics that make you feel all gooey inside after reading 'em: "Spider Kiss" and "Stalking the Nightmare". " Spider Kiss" mainly concentrates on the career of a rock star from his beginnings to his horrible finish. "Stalking the Nightmare" is the not-so-average collection of killer short fiction and biting commentary. To all who have not read Ellison: Buy this book. Buy any book by Ellison. It'll change your life for the better. For those who have read him: obviously nothing here to be said.

This fourth volume in White Wolf's reprint series includes two of Ellison's finest collections. The first, "Love Aint Nothing But Sex Misspelled," contains stories reflecting the angst and turmoil of the sixties. "The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-strap Wedgie," "Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine," "A Prayer For No Ones Enemy," and "Punky & the Yale Men" deal variously with icons, abortion, politics and racism. The second collection examines love and the various forms it takes: from the experimental title tale, "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World," which won Ellison his fourth Hugo, "Along the Scenic Route," which dealt with "road rage" long before the term was coined, and "Try a Dull Knife," a story about emotional vampirism, to the cult classic, Nebula-winning novella, "A Boy and His Dog," in which a futuristic society is turned upside down and a canine companion educates a boy while teaching him the true meaning of love. Dressed up in a provocative dust-jacket by John K. Snyder, this big, beautiful omnibus edition will capture the heart of longtime fans and dazzle the uninitiated with Ellison's white-hot writing. (from "Des Moines Register" Copyright 1998)

The character interaction was incredible. The plot was multi-facited always suprising with each turn and twist.

I give this book a 9 because a 10 would be for perfection and Mr. Ellison is not perfect. The endflap presents a benevolent side of the nearly perfect author that has been carefully concealed from his readers in the past. This book is yet another collection of short stories. They are nearly all wonderfully crafted morality tales driven by white-hot anger. I have many paperbacks by this author, including one where the author is identified as "Hal" Ellison. They are crumbling with age and I fear to open them. Thank you, White Wolf Publishing, for bringing them out in these great new editions. Included is an author's introduction which puts a personal context around these stories. This intro is an important part of the stories. The reader would be as impoverished without this as one who views a play by George Bernard Shaw without reading the author's commentary.