Rating: 
Summary: A Curate's Egg
Review: ....is good in parts.I read about this anthology when I was in my teens, in the 1970s, but never encountered it until I literally fell over it second hand. A couple of quid swapped hands and there I had it... I too was diappointed in 'Riders of the Purple Wage' - but found a great deal of pleasure in reading less publcised stories like 'A gift for Juliette', 'Judas' and 'Shall the dust praise thee'. Fritz Leiber's 'Gonna roll the bones' was also a delight. I think my problem with this book was the number of stories that dropped in to the 'New Wave' of Science Fiction that was prevalent in the mid to late 1960s when this collection was first made. I guess I'm a fan of the 'flange and grommet' school of science fiction and find some of the sociological meanderings in this book to be a little pointless 40 years on. Is it as good as it's hype? In my opionion, No. But there are some good stories in here. It will entertain, inspire and infuriate you if you are interested in science fiction, and I guess that's all you can ask for from an anthology!
Rating:
Summary: A Curate's Egg
Review: ....is good in parts. I read about this anthology when I was in my teens, in the 1970s, but never encountered it until I literally fell over it second hand. A couple of quid swapped hands and there I had it... I too was diappointed in 'Riders of the Purple Wage' - but found a great deal of pleasure in reading less publcised stories like 'A gift for Juliette', 'Judas' and 'Shall the dust praise thee'. Fritz Leiber's 'Gonna roll the bones' was also a delight. I think my problem with this book was the number of stories that dropped in to the 'New Wave' of Science Fiction that was prevalent in the mid to late 1960s when this collection was first made. I guess I'm a fan of the 'flange and grommet' school of science fiction and find some of the sociological meanderings in this book to be a little pointless 40 years on. Is it as good as it's hype? In my opionion, No. But there are some good stories in here. It will entertain, inspire and infuriate you if you are interested in science fiction, and I guess that's all you can ask for from an anthology!
Rating: 
Summary: Finally a reprint!
Review: Alrighty! It's about time someone got this book back on the shelves. Leave it to Ibooks, who is bringing a lot of lost classics back into print. Dangerous Visions is the 35-year-old award-winning anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, in which the hot writers of the time could show off some stuff that likely wouldn't appear in the regular publications. There are some enjoyable stories here, and I won't go into detail since the other reviewers cover that. I will agree, however, that some stories aren't quite up to snuff, but the good ones more than make up for it. I am especially happy that this printing contains the original header illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon. When this reprint was announced and I saw the new cover, I was worried that all trace of the Dillons would be gone. That just wouldn't be right, since the book was originally dedicated to them. I wasn't let down! One comment involving this: it appears that instead of doing new typesetting for these larger trade paperback pages, the publisher may have simply enlarged the original pages and printed them as is. Where the type for the introductions is very crisp and clear, the type and headers for the stories looks oversized and bold. I could be wrong, however... On to the cover! Be aware that there are THREE different versions(that I know of, maybe more?). The first is of a woman peering through a wall of windows. The second is a fractal type of pattern. The third, which I purchased, is a very impressive photo of a barefoot man in coat & tie with daVinci wings on his arms preparing to leap off of a cliff. For all three versions, the back cover shows the full image of the original dust jacket by the Dillons. All in all, a very attractive package... a reprint done right!
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best science fiction anthologies ever
Review: Bravo to ibooks for bringing back this classic book of sci-fi stories written by some of the best writers in the genre and edited by a modern master, Harlan Ellison. If you're even a moderate fan of science fiction you owe it to yourself to get this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Perilous Life of Anthologies
Review: First, I should make it clear that I bought this book when it
was new back in 1967. I thought the stories were terrific,
and the commentary Ellison provided was both entertaining
and informative. If nothing else, it helps form a picture of
the times--and there's where we start approaching the qualms I
have about the book. An anthology of original stories, no matter how good, is a time
capsule. It contains a snapshot of the period, and the yoking
of all these dissimilar stories written within a few years of
one another certainly gives me that sensation after all these
years. People who are interested in this aspect, either for
personal or scholarly reasons, would find this book valuable. However, when such considerations are eliminated, I ask myself
who would want to read this book in this format today? There are
wonderful stories in this book: the stories by Silverberg,
Leiber, Delaney, Zelazny, are, I think, particularly accomplished;
many other stories here are worthy of rereading.
The problem is that the book is to some extent a victim
of its own success. The best of these stories have become
widely known in the intervening decades. They're practically
all available elsewhere. I fear that familiarity with the
material here may lessen the impact of the book. For all that, I still like the book alot, and it is incredibly
important in science fiction history. But obviously, there are
questions that did not exist when the book was new.
Rating: 
Summary: Long Live the "Golden Age"!
Review: Fritz Leiber distances himself from the other authors in this book in that his story, "Gonna Roll the Bones", has a story and understandable characters, even if those characters are not admirable. If there is a way to find this story in another collection, I would recommend finding it there. The remainder of this book is not intended to be enjoyed. Instead it is intended as a rebellion against SF authors from the "Golden Age". My suspicion is that Harlan Ellison intended to "revolutionize" SF with this book, but all he wound up doing was showing that revolutions start with ideas, not declaring "Revolution!". The irony was that a "Golden Age" author, Leiber, wrote the only quality story in this anti-"Golden Age" book.
Rating:
Summary: Long Live the "Golden Age"!
Review: Fritz Leiber distances himself from the other authors in this book in that his story, "Gonna Roll the Bones", has a story and understandable characters, even if those characters are not admirable. If there is a way to find this story in another collection, I would recommend finding it there. The remainder of this book is not intended to be enjoyed. Instead it is intended as a rebellion against SF authors from the "Golden Age". My suspicion is that Harlan Ellison intended to "revolutionize" SF with this book, but all he wound up doing was showing that revolutions start with ideas, not declaring "Revolution!". The irony was that a "Golden Age" author, Leiber, wrote the only quality story in this anti-"Golden Age" book.
Rating:
Summary: If you can find it, buy it!
Review: Harlan Ellison's anthology of speculative fiction is perhaps THE most audacious and important collection of short fiction I have ever read. Each story (many by the very best in the field and written specifically for this book) challenges our very beliefs and imaginations and is preceded by Ellison's wry insights into author and story. This is a true masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: The Book That Shook The World
Review: I originally bought the three volumes of this book (in the UK anyway) back in 1976. From then on I have rated HE THE most important writer of this time, and not just of America. Although lumped into the "Sc-Fi" genre this is not science fiction but speculative fiction as put out by writers who write, amongst other things, science fiction stories. Thirty five years have passed since these stories emerged and some of them are not going to have the impact they had in 1967 obviously. However, take your time and you will appreciate what was being done then and how it shaped writings of the future. Then go and search out 'Again Dangerous Visions' to complete your collection. What ever you do don't mention 'The Final Dangerous Visions' to anyone! This book is essential to any collection of 20th and 21st Century literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Utterly Disappointing!
Review: I would give this book 0 stars except for the fact I've yet to finish it and may NEVER finish it. It's about as exciting as watching a trail of ants all day . First off, I am not one of those "pretentious readers" who disdain speculative fiction. In fact, I love it and enjoy very cutting edge material. So, with all the hoopla surrounding this book, I rushed to get it only to find the stories laughably bad and amateurish. Or perhaps that was the intent of the writers? To write such bad fiction and then pass it off as "way out there"? There is no craft evident in any of these stories. I've seen stoned readers at Open Mic nights exhibit more control over their writing. Take for instance, the supposed "Avant-Garde" and Hugo Award-winning "Riders of the Purple Wage" -- an overblown exercise on wordplay and silly scenarios that could've come out of a high school freshman's notebook. How such a mess won a Hugo is beyond me then again Philip K. Dick won for "Man in the High Castle" -- a novel ballooning with stereotypes and I. Ching ramblings. "If All Men Were Brothers" is another over-written joke. You trudge through reams of pages containing long, pointless dialogue until reaching the "Revelation." Okay, I admit the author's theory is interesting, but my question remains: WHERE'S THE STORY??? I don't know why so many Sci-Fi writers feel that just putting forth a "theory" can substitute for story. Need one be reminded of the old adage: "Show don't Tell"? "Evensong" is another one of those pieces that relies on a twist ending. Written in a classic turgid style, e.g. -- "And cold horror curled thickly around him.", it also places far too much emphasis on a "shocking revelation" which actually is not all that shocking nor original. One last example -- "The Day After the Day the Martians Came." I suppose Pohl expected us to be bowled over by the "twist," the supplanting of racial hate? Give me a break. The story is concocted in such amateurish fashion -- guys at poker tables cracking jokes and all -- that it is completely bereft of any power. Also, his idea is asinine -- the idea that hatred towards some other life-form is better. Because HATE, I "hate" to tell you, is STILL HATE. Well, I could go on, but I won't. I just cannot understand all the praise for this book. It's like praising a Sunday comic strip as the "8th Wonder of the World." If this collection was truly "avant-garde" in 1967, then all I can say is people must've been living in caves in 1967.
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