(January 8, 2020) I'm not sure what to make of this. Amazon sent it to me as a present...or so the note inside said. My old brain forgot that Abebooks is now a subsidiary of Amazon, much to my regret. Still, the note on the inside gave not one hint that it was from AbeBooks; only the UPS tracking details (arriving AFTER the package did) gave any hint that it was from Amazon.

(Weird, you know?)

I'm really going to miss AbeBooks.

(February 16, 2020) I've started to read this, and it made me weep. Not the stories themselves, but some of the brief words splashed almost at random (seemingly), which presage his coming end. This was originally published on 2015-12-31 (Amazon says 2015-10-31, but they're wrong). Harlan Ellison left this world on June 28, 2018. Here's the first one of those bits of commentary:

"I'm drifting. That's one of the symptoms of the stroke-- I drift a lot; all the tales are interlocking now."

That was broken up, and covered two pages. I wept, and had to set the book down for a few minutes.

His brief discussion preceding "How Interesting.: A Tiny Man" was very like him, and I look forward to reading the other stories. I've been reading this only during my time in the waiting room before they radiate my brain (it sounds much worse than it is, please don't worry). It's refreshing, and easy to pick back up each time I go.

I'll probably edit this again, at least once more, when I finish the book... ( )

Harlan is still at the top of his game! A wonderful collection! ( )

Good collection of late (but not The Late) Ellison. Weird, funny, and usually pretty esoteric. ( )

DNF @30%

Harlan Ellison used to be one of my favorite writers, and he's written so many classics that are near the top of my all-time favorites list.

I'm not sure what happened, if my old age or HIS old age got in the way, but I can't read this one. The stories that I finished made absolutely no sense, had no purpose that I could find.

I hate when that happens, it's so disappointing. ( )

Not the best entry point for a reader who is so underprivileged as to have somehow missed out on a lifetime of Harlan Ellison, but quite a treat for fans. The stories themselves run the gamut here, with several being quintessential Ellison and a few that managed to just narrowly elude my grasp-not an uncommon result with his work.

The real treat here (as all of these stories were published, though not collected, previously) prove to be the annotations, introductions, afterwards, and rants that Harlan contributes in between each actual story. Some are just typical, cantankerous Harlan, but several are much more poignant as they detail with agonizing intimacy the various stages of the debilitating stroke that he suffered in late 2014.

I've been a strong fan of Harlan Ellison since I first discovered him in 1990 at the age of 14. If this is the last collection to be published in his lifetime (though I hope there are more to come!), it isn't a bad final entry at all. Some great stuff here, to be sure...if a trifle less accessible than some of his other collections. ( )