Can & Can'tankerous

Can & Can'tankerous

The great English writer Michael Moorcockâ€”and if his name does not leave you dumbstruck with awe, you should move onâ€”called Ellison a â€œfox in the sf hen-coopâ€ whose presence will â€œproduce a brighter, faster hen, with improved survival characteristics, laying a tastier, more nourishing eggâ€ and went on to say Ellison was â€œa brave and lively little beast, who makes a great show of himself to the hounds, but remains too wary ever to lead them to his lair.â€

The brilliant novelist Joanna Russ, in admiring frustration, opined that Ellisonâ€™s stories â€œhave an assault on you,â€ but complained that â€œtheyâ€™re not like a piece of sculpture that you can stop and walk around and look at from all sides.â€ Ellisonâ€™s reply: â€œAbsolutely not; I want them to grab you by the throat and tear off parts of your body.â€

Ellisonâ€™s a double agent who lures you into the bush, and when you blink, heâ€™s gone; you donâ€™t know whether to turn left or right, or just dig a hole. He crafts enigmas set to entrap you. When Ellison sees where a story is going, he figuresâ€”since heâ€™s writing for the smartest readers aliveâ€”you do, too. So he stops and turns left. Or right. Or widdershins. Or digs a cave with 200 tunnels.

Can & Canâ€™tankerous gathers ten previously uncollected tales from the fifth and sixth decades of Harlan Ellisonâ€™s professional writing career: a written-in-the-window endeavor that invites re-reading from the start before youâ€™ve even finished it; a second entry in his (now) ongoing abcedarian sequence; a â€œlostâ€ pulp tale re-cast as a retro-fable; a melancholy meditation for departed friend and fellow legend, Ray Bradbury; a 2001 revision of a 1956 original; an absurdist ascent toward enlightenment (or its gluten-free substitute); a 200-word exercise in not following the directions as written (with a special introduction by Neil Gaiman that weighs in at four times the word count of its subject); a fantastical lament for a bottom-line world; the 2011 Nebula Award-winning short story; and Ellisonâ€™s most recent offering, a fusion of fact and fiction that calls to mind Russâ€™s frustration and Moorcockâ€™s metaphor while offering a solution to the storyâ€™s enigma in plain view.

Strokes be damned! Ellisonâ€™s still here! HEâ€™s still writing! And with more new books published in the last ten years than any preceding decade of his career, his third act is proving to be the kind other living legends envy.

Country	USA
Author	Harlan Ellison (R)
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9781596067523
Format	Kindle eBook
IsAdultProduct
Label	Subterranean Press
Manufacturer	Subterranean Press
NumberOfPages	236
PublicationDate	2015-12-31
Publisher	Subterranean Press
ReleaseDate	2015-12-31
Studio	Subterranean Press

You might also like...