Strange Wine

Rating:
Summary: Ellison's best - an amazing collection
Review: Ellison is amazing - you probably already know that (and if you don't - where have you *been*???!). "Deathbird Stories" may be the flashier and get more press but "Strange Wine" is my favorite of Ellison's collections. The stories are moving and lyrical and funny and intense and subtle and purely Ellison at his best.

Rating:
Summary: You Won't Want It To End
Review: Every story in this collection is truly strange, ranging from the humorous (Mom), to the outright terrifying (Croatoan). This book is a good sampling of the whole of Harlan's work. Strange Wine has stories of caustic satire, like Hitler Painted Roses, and The New York Review of Bird. At times Harlan slips into outright moralizing like in Emissary From Hamelin and The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but when one reads these stories, one realizes that the moralizing may be very necessary. But never does it get boring. In one of his most unusually written stories, From A-Z In the Chocolate Alphabet, you get the full effect of Harlan's strange brand of storytelling. A great treat in this book is the intro which gives us a stern talking on the dangers of . . . can you guess . . . TV, that's right, TV. For those of you new to Harlan's brand of fiction this book will give you an appreciation for this extremely underrated writer. For those of you already familiar with Harlan, you already know what treasures there are in his stories.

Rating:
Summary: You Won't Want It To End
Review: Every story in this collection is truly strange, ranging from the humorous (Mom), to the outright terrifying (Croatoan). This book is a good sampling of the whole of Harlan's work. Strange Wine has stories of caustic satire, like Hitler Painted Roses, and The New York Review of Bird. At times Harlan slips into outright moralizing like in Emissary From Hamelin and The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but when one reads these stories, one realizes that the moralizing may be very necessary. But never does it get boring. In one of his most unusually written stories, From A-Z In the Chocolate Alphabet, you get the full effect of Harlan's strange brand of storytelling. A great treat in this book is the intro which gives us a stern talking on the dangers of . . . can you guess . . . TV, that's right, TV. For those of you new to Harlan's brand of fiction this book will give you an appreciation for this extremely underrated writer. For those of you already familiar with Harlan, you already know what treasures there are in his stories.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best short story collection I've ever read.
Review: Harlan Ellison is definitely a genius! I've read "Strange Wine" several times, and the stories still astound me. This is what sci-fi/fantasy should be. The first time I read "Strange Wine" was about 15 years ago, when I was in grade school and it has had a profound effect on my reading tastes.

Rating:
Summary: forgotten master of "speculative" fiction
Review: Harlan Ellison, once widely respected, now almost forgotten for his forays into the comic world, Had his last great stand with this collection. Not a master of dialouge but with a almost unequaled imagination ellison shows us worlds undreamed. Never scared to tackle controversial issues the very first tale deals with abortion with bone chilling results. He takes pot shots at ethnic ghosts, hack best selling authors, and even the grimms brothers but it is the haunting Hitler Painted Roses that lingers in the memory. One of the most disturbing and thought provoking stories ever written, it deals with, at its core the age old idea that you are what popular opinion says that you are. Strange Wine is one of the best ways to spend your money and your time....

Rating:
Summary: You haven't read this book?
Review: If you have not read and memorized every word of Strange Wine, then I must conclude that you lead a life of total and mind-melting desolation. It takes super-human effort just to open your eyes in the morning. You are finding it more and more difficult to remember to breathe...you have forgotten your own name and long ago misplaced your children in a shopping mall in Salt Lake City

Rating:
Summary: Drink deeply from Ellison's Strange Wine......it is potent
Review: It is good news that this book is soon to be republished. It's about time. I've been a fan of Ellison for a quarter of a century and this, by far, is my favourite book of his. If you have never come across Ellison before, you're in for a treat. A master story-teller, he breaks new ground with practically every story, whether it is in the style of the telling - such as "From A to Z, The Chocolate Alphabet"-, or in the subject matter - "Croatoan." Whatever the style or the subject matter, the voice of Ellison is unmistakable, -uncompromising, vivid, funny, and perceptive- so that even if an Ellison story did not have his name above it, you would quickly guess whom it was. The stories range from the humorous "Mom" to the serious "In Fear of K." Whatever he writes, he is thoroughly entertaining. What makes this collection of stories different from his others is that this collection has an introduction for every story. With any other writer, this would be an intrusion; but with Ellison, it works, because the man is funny, wise, and entertaining. They are basically a miscellany of anything that Ellison wants to talk about: How he came to write this or that story; where he wrote it; the ideas behind it- and sometimes the connection to the story is tenuous." The New York Review of Bird" for instance. You won't care. It is all good stuff. I usually find at least one story in any collection that I don't like, and this book is no exception. "Seeing" I found unreadable. This is a mere quibble. Everything else in here is just dandy. It even has a wonderful cover by Leo and Dianne Dillon. What more can a person want?

Rating:
Summary: The title fic (and it alone) is a masterpiece
Review: Let's get one thing straight right here & now, Smedley. I happen to hate Harlan more than life itself. He's a ham-fisted didactic fictionist with all the subtlety of a German jazz band. (He's also a self-congratulatory self-aggrandizing non-fictionist but that's another story.) Harlan is also a self-declared atheist and I begrudge him his hypocritical schizophrenia. If he doesn't believe in any of that supernatural horsecrap then why has he spent his whole life writing it? At least Philip Dick wasn't a phony in that regard. Phil churned out that fantasy stuff and backed it up by being a full-tilt wackaloon. Harlan is also the single worst writer of fictional whimsy in the history of the universe. Remember that cutesy-poo story about the cutesy-poo space-creatures who engage in cutesy-poo sex with various Earthlings (including William Shatner, who should've known better)? Dottie Parker once provided a positive blurb for an Ellison book, but she would've been first in line to fwow up at that pathetic attempt at whimsy.

Having said all that (having sung my Hymn of Hate, as Orwell would say), let me congratulate Harlan for having written the title story. Which is a brilliant feat of imagination. And which was rightly included in a shortfic collection put together by Ursula LeGuinn. That single dreary story has singlehandedly redeemed Harlan's existence.



Rating:
Summary: a book worth finding
Review: Someplace out there someone is doing you a favor. Maybe their literary tatstes have suffered one too many body-blows from Harold Robbins or maybe a runaway bus smacked any higher function right out of them. Maybe they have left this mortal coil for a better place and their executors are Visigoths. Whatever. Like the strange tumblers and keyways of evolution, some event or circumstance has led you to a gift. A cosmic freebie. Don't drop the ball now.

To say it plainly; 'The New York Review of Bird' alone is worth the price of this book twice over. The remainder of this excellent book is a sort of gift. Polished, kaleidescopic and with one or two sharp edges; somthing to keep you coming back for more while (hopefully) sending you on.

This book introduced me to the talents of Harlan Ellison. Now I return the karma by urging you to try it although I stop short of letting go of my copy. I like good karma, but there is a limit.

Rating:
Summary: Harlan Ellison drinks of the "Strange Wine" of imagination
Review: The biggest problem with Harlan Ellison's short story collection "Strange Wine" is that the introductory essay is so good. "Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself" is one of the best of Ellison's introductions, combining biography with diatribe, in this case a denunciation of watching television as being "soul deadening, dehumanizing, soporific in a poisonous way, ultimately brutalizing." Ellison finds watching television to be "a bad thing." In contrast he offers "Strange Wine" as a metaphor for imagination, the key element that the dinosaurs lacked that turned them into fossil fuels.

The fifteen stories collected in "Strange Wane" do not include any of the acknowledged classics of speculative fiction that Ellison has written over the years, but there is certainly enough food for thought here to make it well worth the reading. "Mom" is a nice tribute to Ellison's own mother (is there any other way to read this one?), and "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet" is the product of one of those stunts Ellison does when he writes in the window of a bookstore, but what he can do with one paragraph about a nonsense word is pretty impressive. "Lonely Women are the Vessels of Time" is a rather short, short story, but it is about loneliness, which is one of Ellison's better themes. "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is a harrowing little tale about a man having dreams of dead Nazi war criminals. "The Diagnosis of Dr. D'arque Angel" does a nice little twist on Faust, and "Hitler Painted Roses," another one of those stories written as a stunt, is based on the chilling idea that it is humanity and not God who determines who gets to go to Heaven and who gets dumped in Hell. Then again, "Working with the Little People" is actually rather cute, which is a rather disquieting idea when you are talking about the writings of Harlan Ellison.

There are a few misfires in the bunch: "Killing Bernstein" has a great premise when a toy company executive kills his ex-lover, only to have her show up the next day as if nothing had happened. I was thinking that this one would go in a different direction, so the ending rubbed me the wrong way, while "The Emissary from Hamelin" strikes me as being a trifle not worth Ellison's time. Even "CROATOAN" seems heavy-handed, despite the subject matter, although the final image is certainly disturbing enough. The rest of the stories are middling, with the title story being something of a disappointment given how the essay makes the phrase so significant.

So, if we were grading all of the stories in "Strange Wine" I think it is safe to say that Ellison would come out with a solid "B" average. I still maintain that once you read the essay you have gotten your money's worth with this collection, but with Ellison there are always going to be several unforgettable stories that you will enjoy having read, whether you are a big time fan or just checking out the book to see what he is ranting and raving about this time around.