In an alternate world in which John F. Kennedy survived and scientific breakthroughs in animal research and telepathy allow for advanced communication with animal companions, fifteen-year-old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, scavenge the wastelands of a war-torn United States, survivors of a nuclear World War III between the Americans and the Soviets. While Blood guides Vic toward women — to be used for sex — Vic ensures that Blood has food, but the symbiotic relationship is put at risk when the pair meets Quilla June Holmes, who lures the boy to an underground civilization. A piece of shocking, dystopic science fiction, A Boy and His Dog questions the boundaries and nature of love while crafting a vision of a dark future guaranteed to leave chills. Winner of the Nebula Award 1969

Given its extraordinary span, its international scope, and its variant styles and groundbreaking stylists, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a singular achievement. A bestselling master of suspense himself Jeffery Deaver had the enviable task of selecting from the thousands of stories written over the past one hundred years those which best represented the classic form, as well as the justly celebrated authors whose ironic twists and stunning payoffs left a lasting, vivid, and unnerving impression. The result is a triumph. In this ambitious anthology you’ll revel in the sardonic, overtly amoral plotting of Patricia Highsmith. You’ll rediscover the strangely poignant and surprising turns of Stanley Ellin, and the profoundly underrated Margaret Millar, a genius who mixed savage social satire with brooding horror. You’ll be treated to Stephen King at his chilling best. You’ll find yourself on the violent urban streets of Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane, and seeped in the ominous regional flavor of Sharyn McCrumb and Tony Hillerman. You’ll marvel at the cunning webs spun by Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, Anthony Boucher, and Sara Paretsky, all of whom defy expectations as they reinvent the genre. And you’ll understand the awesome reputations of those authors who set the standard, such as the legendary Harlan Ellison, Fredric Brown, the master of the twist ending, and James M. Cain, uncannily skilled at knowing what went on between men and women behind closed doors. (The darker the room the better.) Delivering everything from the one-two punch of the detective story to the ingeniously precise trappings of the police procedural, from the disquieting corners of the criminal mind to sheer dread-inducing horror, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a rich anthology of this popular literary genre, a stunning tribute to the art of storytelling, and to the men and women who have done it best

Harlan Ellison, Richard Christian Matheson, Connie Willis, and many more contribute to a compelling psychological exploration of the many shades of love. An incubus disguised as a high school girl puts a disturbing spin on the teacher/student fantasy. An engineer creates a robot with unexpected consequences during the end of the world. A man becomes the pet of alien invaders. From stories of aliens in other worlds to those living among us, these tales will move you out of your comfort zone and open you up to experiencing something—or someone—completely different

The New York Times called him relentlessly honest and then used him as the subject of its famous Sunday Acrostic. People Magizine said there was no one like him, then cursed him for preventing easy sleep. But in these stories Harlan Ellison outdoes himself, rampaging like a mad thing through love (Cold Friend, Kiss of Fire, Paulie Charmed the Sleeping Woman), hate (Knox, Silent in Gehenna), sex (Catman, Erotophobia), lost childhood (One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty) and into such bizarre subjects as the problems of blue-skinned, eleven-armed Yiddish aliens, what it's like to witness the end of the world and what happens on the day the planet Earth swallows Barbra Streisand. Oh yeah, this one's a doozy!

From Robert Silverberg’s “Earthmen and Strangers” anthology, 1966: The Budrys story depicts meek, peaceful alien beings, intelligent but simple. Now we meet a very different sort of creature: a ravenous beast out of nightmare, rippling with strength, coursing with barely repressed violence. Yet Harlan Ellison’s Lad-nar and Algis Budrys’ Tylus both regard the Earthmen who visit them as supernatural beings. They recognize in them the skills and powers of superior civilizations. In this story, intelligence meets brute force in a conflict that is not quite a conflict, and a strange, curiously touching relationship develops between man and monster on this rugged lightning-blasted world. Harlan Ellison has been a professional writer since 1955, and this was one of his first published stories. It reveals the power and intensity of imagination that has since carried him to a successful career as an author of screenplays for television and motion pictures

When the government wields its power against its own people, every citizen becomes an enemy of the state. Will you fight the system, or be ground to dust beneath the boot of tyranny? In his smash-hit anthologies Wastelands and The Living Dead, acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams showed you what happens when society is utterly wiped away. Now he brings you a glimpse into an equally terrifying future — what happens when civilization invades and dictates every aspect of your life? From 1984 to The Handmaid’s Tale, from Children of Men to Bioshock, the dystopian imagination has been a vital and gripping cautionary force. Brave New Worlds collects 33 of the best tales of totalitarian menace by some of today’s most visionary writers. From Huxley's Brave New World, to Orwell's 1984, to Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, dystopian books have always been an integral part of both science fiction and literature, and have influenced the broader culture discussion in unique and permanent ways. Brave New Worlds brings together the best dystopian fiction of the last 30 years, demonstrating the diversity that flourishes in this compelling subgenre. This landmark tome contains stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, M. Rickert, Paolo Bacigalupi, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and many others

Harlan Ellison’s masterwork of myth and terror as he seduces all innocence on a mind-freezing odyssey into the darkest reaches of mortal terror and the most dazzling heights of Olympian hell in his finest collection. Deathbird Stories is a collection of 19 of Harlan Ellison's best stories, including Edgar and Hugo winners, originally published between 1960 and 1974. The collection contains some of Ellison's best stories from earlier collections and is judged by some to be his most consistently high quality collection of short fiction. The theme of the collection can be loosely defined as God, or Gods. Sometimes they're dead or dying, some of them are as brand-new as today's technology. Unlike some of Ellison’s collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979). When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction. His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat… as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you’ll ever experience. “Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing.”

Ellison Wonderland is a collection of short stories by author Harlan Ellison that was originally published in 1962. Gerry Gross bought the book from Ellison in 1961, providing him with the funds he needed to move to Los Angeles. Subsequent payments after the book was published supplied the author with enough money to survive until he was able to find a job writing for a television series. It was later reprinted in 1974 by New American Library with an introduction by Ellison. The stories are in the genre of speculative fiction, and concentrate on the themes of loneliness, the end of the world, and the flaws of humanity. Ellison wrote a short introduction to each story, a tradition that he would repeat in many of his later short story collections. Many of the stories in this collection, such as "All the Sounds of Fear", "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman" and "In Lonely Lands", would turn up in later anthologies of Ellison's short stories. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellison_Wonderland

Rue Morgue Magazine says ... "The stories are so beautifully descriptive, imaginative, and well-crafted, but they are also ripe with dread and inner turmoil... the pervasive feeling of helplessness on display here could run even the most seasoned horror reader emotionally ragged, especially because the book’s near impossible to put down once started. Stare into the abyss, but only if you dare get lost in it." "...FEAR THE ABYSS is a truly terrifying collection that combines a slick blend of experimental and speculative sci-fi with both gruesome and psychological horror....The stores are beautifully descriptive, imaginative, and well-crafted, but they are also ripe with dread and inner turmoil....the book's near-impossible to put down once started." "FEAR THE ABYSS brings the shocks, one disturbing jolt after another. These are tales from the bleeding edge of modern horror fiction. Highly recommended." We stare into the abyss, hoping to learn, to understand. But the abyss is cold and uncaring. Post Mortem Press presents twenty-two unique visions of the fear of the unknown. Stories from authors nominated and awarded some of the most prestigious honors in genre fiction: Hugo, Nebula, Aurora, Bram Stoker™, and many others. These writers understand fear. Includes award-winning genre classics from masters of the unknown, Harlan Ellison® and Jack Ketchum

First in the long-running series of erotic horror tales! Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Robert R. McCammon, Graham Masterton, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, David J. Schow, Lisa Tuttle, F. Paul Wilson, Theodore Sturgeon, and other masters of the macabre take readers into their private world of fear, fantasy, and fatal attraction — in 24 tales of dread and debauchery, riveting stories of sex and terror

La nostalgica storia di un bambino che si rifiuta di crescere, per continuare ad ascoltare i programmi del passato. Vincitore dei premi Hugo e Nebula per il miglior racconto breve (Short Story) in 1978. Vincitore del British Fantasy Award in 1979. Nominato per il World Fantasy Award in 1978

The seventeen stories that make up Volumes Two and Three of the Emmy® award-winning Netflix Original series Love, Death & Robots. Featuring best-selling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher, and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Stories by Neal Asher, Paolo Bacigalupi, J. G. Ballard, Alan Baxter, Justin Coates, Harlan Ellison, Joachim Heijndermans, Joe Lansdale, Rich Larson, Alberto Miego, Jeff Fowler & Tim Miller, John Scalzi, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick

This stellar collection of Jewish science fiction and fantasy carries on in the tradition of its companion volume—the enduring classic Wandering Stars—breaking new ground with every story. Trouble with mothers; invading aliens and demons; the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah… all these phenomena and more are tackled in these tales from a creative group of extraordinary writers. We go to the edges of the universe, finding humor, pain and humanity in the unlikeliest of places and situations. Filled with wit, vigor and sharp insight, this is a fantastic feast for the imagination that will intrigue and delight everyone who picks it up, Jew and non-Jew alike

In their heyday, the true-crime pulp magazines spawned many of the masters of American detective fiction. These early gems have been unearthed and collected here for the first time

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF! The only trouble is, fear comes in so many different shapes and sizes these days. It comes as rejection by a beautiful woman. It comes in the brutalization of your love by an amoral man. It comes with the threat of impending nuclear holocaust; with the slithering shadows in the city streets; with the ripoff artists who lie in wait behind every television commercial. Fear is the erratic behavior of all the nut cases and whackos walking the streets-they look just like you and me and your lover and your mother-and all they need is a wrong word and there they go to the top of an apartment building with a sniperscope'd rifle. Fear is all around you. You have nothing to fear but fear itself, right? Sure. The only trouble is, the minute you get all the rational fears taken care of, all battened down and secure, here comes something new. Like what? Well, like the special fears generated in these 16 incredible stories. Fear described as it's never been described before, by the startling imagination of Harlan Ellison, master fantasist, tour-guide through the land of dreadful visions, unerring observer of human folly and supernatural diabolism. Or, quoting the Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, Ellison's "stories are kaleidoscopic in their range, breathtaking in their beauty, hideous in their deformity, insulting in their arrogance and unarguable in the accuracy of their insight." AND HERE ARE 16 NEW TERRORS TO SCARE THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF YOU!

Robert Heinlein says, “This book is raw corn liquor. You should serve a whiskbroom with each shot so the customer can brush the sawdust off after he gets up from the floor.” Perhaps a mooring cable might also be added as necessary equipment for reading these eight wonderful stories: They not only knock you down — they raise you to the stars. Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths

What do you imagine when you hear the name… Bradbury? You might see rockets to Mars. Or bizarre circuses where otherworldly acts whirl in the center ring. Perhaps you travel to a dystopian future, where books are set ablaze… or to an out-of-the-way sideshow, where animated illustrations crawl across human skin. Or maybe, suddenly, you're returned to a simpler time in small-town America, where summer perfumes the air and life is almost perfect… almost. Ray Bradbury—peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors—is a literary giant whose remarkable career has spanned seven decades. Now twenty-six of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists

Mercurial, belligerent, passionately in love with language and wild ideas, Harlan Ellison has, for half a century, steadily gathered to himself and his thirty-seven books an undeniably fanatical readership. Winner of more awards for imaginative literature than any other living writer, he is the only scenarist ever to win the Writers Guild of America award three times for outstanding teleplay. Though his contemporary fantasies have been compared favorably with the dark visions of Borges, Barthelme, Poe and Kafka, Ellison resists categorization with a vehemence that alienates critics and reviewers seeking easy pigeonholes for an extraordinary writer. The San Francisco Chronicle writes, "The categories are too small to describe Harlan Ellison. Lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, moralist, purveyor of pure horror and black comedy; he is all these and more." In this, his thirty-seventh book, setting down as never before the mortal dreads we all share, Harlan Ellison has put together his best work to date: sixteen uncollected stories (half of which are award-winners), totaling a marvel-filled 105,000 words and including a brand-new novella, his longest work in over a dozen years

He claims he’s not a fan of rock-and-roll, but somehow Harlan Ellison’s seminal novel based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the first — and still one of the best — dissections of the wildly destructive rock-and-roll lifestyle, Spider Kiss isn’t about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit or space invaders that smell like chicken soup. Instead, it’s the story of Luther Sellers, a poor kid from Louisville with a voice like an angel who’s renamed Stag Preston by a ruthless promoter. Preston’s meteoric rise on the music scene is matched only by the rise in his enormous appetites — and not just for home cooking — and soon the invisible monkey named Success is riding him straight to hell. This raucous early novel reinforces Ellison’s reputation as one of America’s most dynamic writers

Won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1969

In his introduction to the The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, 'noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It's the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.' Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction. James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, series editor of the annual The Best American Mystery Stories, mined one hundred years of writing - 1910-2010 - to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories. From noir's twenties-era infancy come gems like James M. Cain's 'Pastorale,' and its post-war heyday boasts giants like Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. Packing an undeniable punch, diverse contemporary incarnations include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, and William Gay, with many page-turners appearing in the last decade

The BIGGEST, the BOLDEST, the MOST COMPREHENSIVE collection of PULP WRITING ever assembled! Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many, many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections — The Crimefighters, The Villains, and The Dames — with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman. Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart — he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning — the hard way — never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!” From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction

Going ten years strong, the acclaimed collection of contemporary horror fiction again showcases the talents of the finest writers working the field of fear. Along with his annual review of the year in horror, award-winning editor Stephen Jones has chosen the year's best stories by the old masters and new voices alike. — The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 includes bloodcurdlers and flesh-crawlers from Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Dennis Etchison, Thomas Ligotti, Michael Marshall Smith, Peter Straub, Kim Newman, Harlan Ellison, and many others

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Harlan Ellison has written or edited 75 books, more than 1700 stories, essays, articles and newspaper columns, two dozen teleplays, and a dozen movies. Now, for the first time anywhere, Troublemakers presents a collection of Ellison's classic stories—chosen by the author—that will introduce new readers to a writer described by the New York Times as having "the spellbinding quality of a great nonstop talker, with a cultural warehouse for a mind."

Ancora un premio Nebula e ancora una storia sulla fine del mondo, ma il punto di vista di Ellison è completamente diverso da quello della Willis e anche l’impostazione delle due storie non ha nulla in comune: laddove la Willis è dolce e sensibile Ellison è duro e scioccante, brutale come soltanto lui sa esserlo. C’è una cosa tuttavia che queste due storie hanno in comune, a parte il tema: entrambe fanno ormai parte della storia della fantascienza moderna, e a ragione!

The first time in a science fiction and fantasy collection that the Jewish People—and the richness of their particular points of view—appear without a mask. A showpiece of Jewish wit, culture, and lore, blending humor and sadness, cynicism and faith

Artificial intelligence in 100 stories. To ready us for the inevitable, here are 100 of the best short stories ever written--most of them by humans--about robots and artificial minds. Read them while you can, learn from them, and make your preparations... From 1837 through to the present day, from Charles Dickens to Cory Doctorow, this collection contains the most diverse collection of robots ever assembled. Anthropomorphic robots, invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate if you blinked you might miss them. The literature of robots and artificial intelligence is so wildly diverse, in both tone and intent, that our stories form six thematic collections. It's Alive! is about inventors and their creations. Following the Money drops robots into the day-to-day business of living. Owners and Servants considers the human potentials and pitfalls of owning and

"Get it straight right now: these aren't kids playing games of war. They mean business. They are junior-grade killers and public enemies one through five thousand..." In Rusty Santoro's neighborhood, the kids carry knives, chains, bricks. Broken glass. And when they fight, they fight dirty, leaving the streets littered with the bodies of the injured and the dead. Rusty wants out - but you can't just walk away from a New York street gang. And his decision may leave his family to pay a terrible price. First published more than half a century ago and inspired by the author's real-life experience going undercover inside a street gang, Web of the City was Harlan Ellison's first novel and marked the long-form debut of one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, and controversial voices of 20th century letters. Appearing here for the first time together with three thematically related short stories Ellison wrote for the pulp... Rusty felt the sweat that had come to live on his spine trickle down like a small bug. He had made his peace with them, and he was free of the gang. That was it. He had it knocked now. He'd built a big sin, but it was a broken bit now. The gang was there, and he was here. The streets were silent. How strange for this early in the evening. As though the being that was the neighborhood—and it was a thing with life and sentience—knew something was about to happen. The silence made the sweat return. It was too quiet. He came around the corner, and they were waiting. “Nobody bugs out on the Cougars,” was all one of them said. It was so dark, the streetlight broken, that he could not see the kid's face, but it was light enough to see the reflection of moonlight on the tire chain in the kid's hand. Then they jumped him…

В десяти томах «Антологии мировой фантастики» собраны произведения лучших зарубежных и российских мастеров этого рода литературы, всего около сотни блистательных имен. Каждый том серии посвящен какой-нибудь излюбленной теме фантастов: контакт с инопланетным разумом, путешествия во времени, исследования космоса и т. д. В составлении томов приняли участие наиболее известные отечественные критики и литературоведы, профессионально занимающиеся изучением фантастики. В каждую книгу серии вошли справочные материалы, а также обзор фантастической литературы по теме, которой посвящен этот том. «Антология мировой фантастики» рассчитана на всех интересующихся такого рода литературой, но особенно полезна будет для школьников. Сон разума рождает чудовищ. Фантастика будит разум

Сборник представляет ранее не издававшимся роман Майкла Муркока «Багряная игра», повести Урсулы Ле Гуин, Мервина Пика, Кита Ломера и рассказы признанных мастеров англо-американской фантастики, отмеченных высшими литературными премиями — «Хьюго» и «Небыола». Новые переводы, раскованная нестандартность формы и стиля, и — Нечто Странное, мрачное и зловещее, что неизменно встречает героев в запутанных лабиринтах блестяще сконструированной авторами реальности

Опубликовано в сборнике «Миры Харлана Эллисона. Том 1. Миры страха», издательство «Полярис», Рига, 1997 г., c. 110-158. Оригинальное название: Run for the Stars, опубликовано в 1957 г. в журнале «Science Fiction Adventures»

Печатается по изданию: Миры Харлана Эллисона, т.3. Рига, Изд-во «Полярис», 1997, с.161-169

Педерсон прожил долгую жизнь. Но вот пришло время умирать, время очутиться в Землях Опустелых. Куда каждый ухoдит один. Но у Педерсона есть друг, есть соратник, и хотя он и инопланетянин, но он пройдёт вместе с Педерсонем весь путь до конца... И тогда, наконец, придёт ночь в Земли Опустелые, ночь, но не тьма