The Last Dangerous Visions

by Harlan Ellison, J. Michael Straczynski (Editor), Max Brooks (Contribution by), James S. A. Corey (Contribution by), Richard Peck (Contribution by)

Overview

An anthology more than half a century in the making, The Last Dangerous Visions is the third and final installment of the legendary science fiction anthology series.

In 1973 celebrated writer and editor Harlan Ellison announced the third and final volume of his unprecedented anthology series, which began with Dangerous Visions and continued with Again, Dangerous Visions. But for reasons undisclosed, The Last Dangerous Visions was never completed.

Now, six years after Ellison’s passing, science fiction’s most famous unpublished book is here. And with it, the heartbreaking true story of the troubled genius behind it.

Provocative and controversial, socially conscious and politically charged, wildly imaginative yet deeply grounded, the thirty-two never-before-published stories, essays, and poems in The Last Dangerous Visions stand as a testament to Ellison’s lifelong pursuit of art, uniting a diverse range of science fiction writers both famous and newly minted, including Max Brooks, Edward Bryant, Cecil Castellucci, James S. A. Corey, Howard Fast, P. C. Hodgell, Dan Simmons, Robert Sheckley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mildred Downey Broxon, and Cory Doctorow, among others.

The historic publication of The Last Dangerous Visions completes the long-awaited final chapter in an incredible literary legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212183796
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	10/01/2024
Series:	Dangerous Visions Series , #3
Pages:	450
Sales rank:	28,700
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.

J. Michael Straczynski is a legendary American writer and television producer—best known as the author of The Complete Guide to Scriptwriting, as the creator and showrunner for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 and, from 2001 to 2007, the writer for the long-running Marvel comic book series The Amazing Spider-Man.

Max Brooks is a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His bestselling books include Minecraft: The Island, The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z, which was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Brad Pitt. His graphic novels include The Harlem Hellfighters.

James S. A. Corey is the pen name of fantasy authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Their Expanse series receive a 2020 Hugo Award for best series. In addition to writing the novels and short stories of The Expanse, they wrote and produced the television series of the same name.

Richard Peck has won almost every children’s fiction award, including the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the Newbery Medal, the Scott O’Dell Award, and the Edgar, and he has twice been nominated for a National Book Award. He was the first children’s author ever to have been awarded a National Humanities Medal.

Cory Doctorow is a blogger, journalist, and author science fiction and nonfiction. His writing has won numerous awards, including three Locus Awards, two John W. Campbell Awards, three Prometheus Awards, two Sunburst Awards, the White Pine Award, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award, among others. He has served as Canadian regional director of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is coeditor of the blog Boing Boing, and he was named one of the web’s twenty-five “influencers” by Forbes and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He is a contributing author to Wired magazine, and his writing has been published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Globe and Mail, the Boston Globe, Popular Science, and others.

Dan Simmons, the author of critically acclaimed suspense and science fiction novels, is a recipient of numerous major international awards, including the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award, among others.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of the ten-book Shadows of the Apt series, starting with Empire in Black and Gold. His other works include the novel Children of Time, which won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the short story collection Feast and Famine, and the novellas The Bloody Deluge and Even in the Cannon's Mouth. He has been shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award and the British Fantasy Award.

Date of Birth:

May 27, 1934

Date of Death:

June 28, 2018

Place of Birth:

Cleveland, OH

Place of Death:

Los Angeles, CA

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/12/2024

J. Michael Straczynski, close friend of Ellison (1934–2018) and the executor of his estate, honors his commitment to publish the brilliant third and final Dangerous Visions anthology, a stellar assembly of impressive talent which fulfills the series’ mandate to present “cutting-edge stories that spoke to our humanity in all its flaws, faults, and glories.” These 32 tales come from both big names—including James S.A. Corey and David Brin—and relative unknowns. Standouts include Stephen Robinett’s chilling “Assignment No. 1,” an all-too-plausible exploration of how elder care might be handled in the future. In Cecil Castellucci’s “After Taste,” an interstellar foodie’s visit to another species to assess their cuisine lands her in an unexpected dilemma that will remind readers of an emotionally complex Twilight Zone episode. Dan Simmons’s gut-wrenching “The Final Pogrom” opens with the line, “The IBM, Honeywell, and other advanced computers were immensely useful in the final roundup of the Jews,” before detailing how technological advances can continue to be harnessed in support of humanity’s worst aspects. The tales are bookended by Straczynski’s essays describing his relationship with Ellison and the process of selecting what has been included in this volume, which was initially scheduled to appear in 1974. The result is a must-read for genre fans. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A worthy capstone to Ellison’s monumental legacy.”

Booklist

09/01/2024

This anthology has been a shibboleth of a book, a phantasm from the mind of the late Ellison that was announced in 1973 to great applause as the follow-up to his two groundbreaking, mind-blowing collections, Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). In spite of contracting for over 100 stories, Ellison was never able to finish this magnum opus of a project. Six years after Ellison's death, J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) has put together a collection that represents Ellison's original vision, through 13 works from an earlier iteration, plus 18 new stories commissioned for this final publication. "War Stories" by Edward Bryant and Ellison's own original introduction give readers a glimpse of what this anthology was intended to be, and new stories by current luminaries in the field, such as Cory Doctorow and Adrian Tchaikovsky, prove there are plenty of dangerous visions yet to explore in the genre. The standout in the collection is Straczynski's "Ellison Exegesis" about his decades-long friendship with the irascible, argumentative, outrageous, and ultimately self-destructive Ellison. VERDICT SF readers will be captivated by this collection of works that are either new for this anthology or have been held in unpublished limbo for decades.—Marlene Harris

Library Journal

These are not stories that should be forgotten; and some of you are about to read them for the first time…I envy you.”

#1 New York Times bestselling author of American G Neil Gaiman

These are not stories that should be forgotten; and some of you are about to read them for the first time . . . I envy you.”

#1 New York Times–bestselling author of Amer Neil Gaiman