Dangerous Visions  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel

Dangerous Visions (ISBN 0-425-06176-0) is a science fiction short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, published in 1967.

A path-breaking collection, Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave science fiction movement, particularly in its depiction of sex in science fiction. Writer/editor Al Sarrantonio writes how Dangerous Visions "almost single-handedly [...] changed the way readers thought about science fiction."

The list of the authors' names reads like a Who's Who of 1960s science fiction. Ellison introduced the anthology both collectively and individually while authors provided afterwords to their own stories.

Contents

Illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon accompany each short story.

• "Foreword 1 - The Second Revolution" by Isaac Asimov
• "Foreword 2 - Harlan and I" by Isaac Asimov
• "Thirty-Two Soothsayers" (introduction) by Harlan Ellison
• "Evensong" by Lester del Rey. This is described by its author as an allegory. It details the capture of a being, identified at the end of the story as God, by Man, which has usurped God's power.
• "Flies" by Robert Silverberg. It was inspired by a quote from King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
• "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 (pseudonym of Hugh J. Parry)
• "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)