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Title: Angry Candy by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0-395-92481-2 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 17 September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52 (25 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Submission to Temptation
Comment: "There is no memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted."
This quote by James Cabell begins a disjointed journey through the mind of Harlan Ellison. I got my copy signed by him in 1988 at Cody's in Berkeley, and I remember thinking that I couldn't afford it and buying it anyway. The quote above reminds me of looking into the future and the logic involved in conniving myself into making the purchase.
I've found a pattern to many of the books I love. They tie together some combination of associations of specific places, people, states of mind, etc... This book falls neatly into that category. I enjoy Harlan Ellison immensely, and associate him with my "formative years" however scary that is....
Anyway, Angry Candy doesn't have the rawness of Shatterday but another good performance by the master of speculative fiction.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dark yet poignant
Comment: There are only a few authors who I'll seek out and read short story collections, my preference being full novels. Theodore Sturgeon is one. Harlan Ellison is another. After whetting my appetite with The Essential Ellison, I moved on to this and was kept just as pleased, though not pleased in a happy sense, pleased in a sense that each story picked at some part of my brain, making me confront my ideas about death and life and living and souls, made me look at it from my perspective and his perspective to see why we thought the way we did. These stories seemed to be written in anger, helpless flailing anger, as Ellison writes in the introduction (and hints at emotionally in the haunting closing story "The Function of Dream Sleep"), at the time these were written people who were close to him in his life were dying almost every month (there's a list going down the side of the intro detailing who died when . . . morbid), and that intro is almost worth the price of the book itself, for it sets the tone for all the other stories, heartfelt and emotional, unflinching and passionate. To go by names would be unnecessary, to name favorites would be useless. You have to read them all, experience them and wonder yourself as Ellison dances from genre to genre, from mystery to science fiction, effortlessly, stamping his print on each story, marking it with anger and sadness. He bared his soul in these stories and while it makes for a gripping and sometimes harrowing read, it doesn't make the reading any less necessary. He didn't turn away from his fears and sorrows and you shouldn't turn away from them either.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ellison- challenging, puzzling, dynamic
Comment: Harlan Ellison is one the world's great short story writers. Forget about labels, SF, fantasy, etc. He is just one of the better practitioners of this art form. He also can be one of the most infuriating, writing experimental stories that take many pages to say nothing. ANGRY CANDY is bit of both with the good outweighing the incomprehensible.
"Paladin of the Lost Hour," "Prince Myshkin," "Laugh Track," and especially "Soft Monkey" ( an incredible tale of survival in the heartless city) are all fine examples of Ellison's ability to create a variety of stories that can grip you with suspense or put a mile on your face ( a rare talent in any writer). It is the few occasions where Ellison drifts off into the bizarre; with stories like "The Region Between" or "Eidolons" where the point is...well I'm not sure where the point is; this being the problem. It is these types of stories that keep me from giving this collection the highest rating, but one thing about Ellison's writing it is never boring and it will always challenge the reader's emotions and intellect. ANGRY CANDY is another example of Ellison's ability to do both of these things magnificently.
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Title: Slippage : Previously Uncollected, Precariously Poised Stories by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0395924820 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 17 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Paingod and Other Delusions by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0759229945 Publisher: E-Reads Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Troublemakers : Stories by Harlan Ellison by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0743423984 Publisher: I Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Dangerous Visions : The 35th Anniversary Edition by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0743452615 Publisher: I Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Vic and Blood: The Continuing Adventures of a Boy and His Dog : A Graphic Novel by Harlan Ellison ISBN: 0743459032 Publisher: I Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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