Rob's review
Slippage: Previously Uncollected, Precariously Poised Stories by Harlan Ellison
Rob's review
rating:
bookshelves: abandoned, anthology, science-fiction
status: Read in September, 2008, read count: 1
rating:
bookshelves: abandoned, anthology, science-fiction
status: Read in September, 2008, read count: 1
I don't have much to say about Slippage. I had never (consciously) read any Harlan Ellison before and because of how celebrated the man's name is, I decided it was worth giving his werk a shot.
Maybe Slippage just isn't one of his better collections. I'm certainly open to the possibility that I got the bad egg from the dozen, if you catch my meaning.
This is not to say that there was nothing redeeming or at all enjoyable about this collection. "This Story Is Titled the Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" had a fun little irreverent streak to it. And "Darkness Upon the Deep" was good (it was certainly readable) but it also felt like a warmed-over and slightly updated Lovecraft(†). Several stories came off this way to me -- as low-impact knock-offs from other writers. Or else as simply low-impact Twilight Zone-esque prose(‡). As I progressed through the pages, the short fiction got better but was best when it was shortest. ...more
Maybe Slippage just isn't one of his better collections. I'm certainly open to the possibility that I got the bad egg from the dozen, if you catch my meaning.
This is not to say that there was nothing redeeming or at all enjoyable about this collection. "This Story Is Titled the Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" had a fun little irreverent streak to it. And "Darkness Upon the Deep" was good (it was certainly readable) but it also felt like a warmed-over and slightly updated Lovecraft(†). Several stories came off this way to me -- as low-impact knock-offs from other writers. Or else as simply low-impact Twilight Zone-esque prose(‡). As I progressed through the pages, the short fiction got better but was best when it was shortest. ...more
