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Paingod and Other Delusions
Robert Heinlein says, "This book is raw corn liquor. You should serve a whiskbroom with each shot so the customer can brush the sawdust off after he gets up from the floor." Perhaps a mooring cable might also be added as necessary equipment for reading these eight wonderful stories: They not only knock you down?they raise you to the stars. Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths.
Contents:
7 · New Introduction: Your Basic Crown of Thorns · in
19 · Spero Meliora · in
24 · Paingod · ss Fantastic Jun ’64
35 · “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman · ss Galaxy Dec ’65
49 · The Crackpots [Kyben] · nv If Jun ’56
89 · Sleeping Dogs · ss Analog Oct ’74
100 · Bright Eyes · ss Fantastic Apr ’65
112 · The Discarded [“The Abnormals”] · ss Fantastic Apr ’59
125 · Wanted in Surgery · nv If Aug ’57
156 · Deeper Than the Darkness · nv Infinity Science Fiction Apr ’57
Contents:
7 · New Introduction: Your Basic Crown of Thorns · in
19 · Spero Meliora · in
24 · Paingod · ss Fantastic Jun ’64
35 · “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman · ss Galaxy Dec ’65
49 · The Crackpots [Kyben] · nv If Jun ’56
89 · Sleeping Dogs · ss Analog Oct ’74
100 · Bright Eyes · ss Fantastic Apr ’65
112 · The Discarded [“The Abnormals”] · ss Fantastic Apr ’59
125 · Wanted in Surgery · nv If Aug ’57
156 · Deeper Than the Darkness · nv Infinity Science Fiction Apr ’57
176 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1965
434 people are currently reading
1367 people want to read
About the author
Harlan Ellison
1,080 books2,803 followersHarlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.
His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.
Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".
His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.
Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".
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April 13, 2025Are we really aware of how much pain there is in the world?
There are all kinds of "Pains" and we all have already felt one or several in our lives. If you’ve never felt any pain, you’re either an alien or so cold-hearted that your demise from this world won’t matter at all.
One of the most hurtful pains is that of love. Theodore Sturgeon said: There’s no absence of love in the world, only worthy places to put it.
If we can't find that "place" and find ourselves alone and unloved, well... we all felt that shattering pain already.
Another one is the pain from the thought of dying alone. I know! everyone is "alone" when the moment comes.
The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—
(Emily Dickinson)
We’ve all at one moment or another felt the fear of that hour awaiting to strike for all of us in a more or less near future. And the thought that we can "go down" without having been beheld as a loved one is more painful than the deed in itself.
I believe that it was what Harlan Ellison tried to tell us with this collection of short stories; Because there’s only one thing that links us as human beings: the universality of our pain and the commonality of our need to go out bravely.
That the most significant aspect in life is to love and be loved and the need of living a worthy life: I’m sure when it comes right down to it, the most ignominious life is better than no life at all, but again and again, I find the answer coming from somewhere too noble to be within myself: “What for?” Staying alive only has merit if one does it with dignity, with purpose, with responsibility to his fellow man. If these are absent, then living is a sluglike thing, more a matter of habit than worth.
As usual with Ellison, you can love or hate him, but you can hardly ignore him. For this review, I opted, like before, for other H.E. books to comment on each story individually.
Paingod
Pain comes to all of us in many packages: physical, emotional, psychosomatic... You name it. What if "Pain" were distributed randomly by a "god" appointed to the position, commanded by an immemorial collective conscience of beings called "Ethos", the self-appointed responsible for the balance between reason and passion in the Universe?
It is the function of that "god" to dispense pain for our own benefit according to the disposition, character or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person and the mesured dollops of melancholy as prescribed by the Ethos... in the immortal words of Mark Twain: If one really believes that there is an all-powerful Deity, and one looks around at the condition of the universe, one is inevitably led to the conclusion that God is an evil crook.
So what would happen if this "god" experienced the same pain he often inflicts on others?
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
The mass of men thus serve the State, not primarily as men, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, jailers, police, etc... they place themselves on a level with wood, earth, and stones; and perhaps wooden men can be made that will also serve the purpose... Others, like most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and civil servants, serve the state and, as they rarely make moral distinctions, they are likely to serve the Devil, as much as God. Very few, like heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the broadest sense, and Men, also serve the state with their consciences, and therefore necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies.
(Henry David Thoreau, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE)
Are you a non-conformist? Are you sure? If you are, the "Ticktockman" is waiting for you.
Do you use Time, or do you serve the Time?
Are you certain of your individuality or your pride of being a cog in the "Machine"?
"Repent!" The Ticktockman absorbs all resistance. "To repent" is to lose oneself in the eternal omnipotent ecstasy of Time, which embodies all Past, Present, and Future.
“You are a nonconformist.”
"That used to not be a crime."
"It is now. Live in the world around you.
And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock...”
And one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we will be slaves of the schedule of the system...
The Crackpots
Madness is the order of the day for this story.
Harlan Ellison, with it, pushes us to ask ourselves:
Am I a proper Kyben mind? A good, logical thinker; the administrative type, you know? Or am I a "Crackpot"? A non-conformist master of the odd and weird?
Eccentricity, madness, lunacy or just idiosyncratic behaviour; some psychologists support that we all, each one of us, in some degree, live, in a moment or another of our lives, all those stages of behavioural patterns outside the accepted norm.
Michel Foucault said: madness is not a natural, unchanging thing, but rather depends on the society in which it exists, where cultural, intellectual and economic structures determine how madness is born and experienced.
Didn't anyone ever ask you, “Are you out of your mind?” And didn't you want to answer: “Certainly!”
H. Ellison tells us that "madness" is in the eye of the beholder. What seems insane or just silly to you may be absolutely logical to someone else. Remember that as you read.
P.S.
This short story demands all the scraps of intelligence we can grasp to understand it, but obviously We wouldn’t expect your simple-celled minds to grasp something like that immediately, after all, we are mad!
Sleeping Dogs
If a male mind is blocked in a manic obsession that tunnels the vision, what is the amount of stupidity it can accumulate?
Military leaders (or any other kind) come in different shapes and sizes. Some are blind to their own flaws. Others are moved by ambition, stupidity, cowardice or sheer evil, and commit barbarous acts.
The patriarchy is a young concept. Human society was mostly matriarchal, woman-centred with goddess-worshipping early forms of religions, from the Paleolithic era (1.5 to 2 million years ago), until sometime around 3000 BCE.
Evidence of matriarchal societies has always existed, although heavily filtered by the narrow minds of Christian missionaries. Before them, Herodotus frightened us with stories of the Amazons as "man-killers" or, later theological depictions of the sinful Eve, passing through the witch hunt and burn epoch, and the myth of inferior female intellectual capacity, radically limited, and in certain societies banned completely, the women's ability to actively contribute to the management of society's affairs, relegating them to a secondary or even irrelevant role except to what concerns reproduction.
Which has been proven to be truly stupid and reductive of the Human Being as a creature possessing a self-conscious intelligence. At the very least, what we are doing is wasting more than 50% of human intellectual capacity and resources, since there are more women than men.
If a man says something in a forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong? (Sir Ken Robinson)
So, how to read and digest a story that says that sexism is stupid and that a woman can think more rationally and efficiently than a man? Obviously (if you are a man) with a great amount of emotional and intellectual openness and a good dose of painkillers for headaches and antacids for bad digestion. After all, "all men" handle rejection; they just don't handle it well.
Bright Eyes
The Creator's hopeless despair and the futility of creation are the themes of this story.
In a condemned world, the question echoes in silence without obtaining the answer to "Why"?
Putting aside religious considerations and entering the mist of sterile speculation, what would a Creator feel beholding the self-immolation of his creation in an orgy of violence and destruction?
The dead were everywhere, sighing soundlessly with milk-white eyes at a tomorrow that had never come... This was the last of it, the last of the race of men. Dust and dead.
And the last of the demiurges, the abandoned sentinel, falls to his knees, weeping tears of infinite sadness, a lament for an entire past condemned by a lost future. A poignant lament for those who lived and passed, condemning him to live in the dark and melancholy silence of eternity. In the melody, never to be heard again, it was all in vain.
So Bright Eyes - never Man - was the last man on Earth. Guardian of a silent cemetery; tomb without an echo, a monument to foolishness, to the absurdity of nobility.
The Discarded
People? No, Discards...
Bitter betrayal is the core of this story. You can’t trust an Earthman!
People have been worshipping the "Barbie & Ken" myth for too long, now.
In the words of Ellison (in 1959) We have a pathological lemming drive to conceal our age, lift our faces, dress like overblown Shirley Temples, black that grey in the hair, live a Lie. Whatever happened to grow old gracefully, the reverence of maturity, the search for character as differentiated from superficial comeliness? It be a disease, I warn you. It will rot you from the inside, while the outside glows. It will escalate into a culture that can never tolerate The Discarded.
Ringing any bells? Do any TV commercials come to mind? How many of these advertisements to lose weight, eliminate wrinkles, prevent baldness or "stop" ageing can we see on television and billboards around the city in a day?
Horribly deformed mutants exiled from the sight of "normal" human beings... Here Ellison creates a parable around the confrontation between the physical ugliness of the mutant exiled and the much darker inner ugliness of human nature.
Wanted in Surgery
When you become obsolete, you are "shelved".
Not even the best writers are above producing weak stories.
In this, Ellison joins the ranks of the Luddites, attacks technological development and rekindles the flames of the protests against machines and automatisms that started about 200 years ago in England, criticising the fact that improved mechanical performance isn't enough to fill the void created by the lack of emotional involvement of the machines.
This story made me think of an ironic joke I saw on a website: Luddite invents the machine to destroy technology quicker.
I think that somehow Ellison missed the "point" here: Machines are not the problem, as usual, human beings are the problem, with "the progress at any cost" and mostly with the ironic pathetic motto "profit at all costs".
Since machines have evolved to the point where they can now replicate the work of our minds and not just our bodies, no job is safe from machines. According to James Lovelock, whose opinions we can't discard lightly, AIs will be the next evolutionary step and the inheritors and keepers of Human Intelligence.
This vision of the future has been pointing to a "game", in which there can only be one loser: Humankind.
Deeper than the Darkness
Mutantes everywhere... Evil X-Man from the 50s without an agenda or purpose.
“Don’t you even know who your planet’s at war with?”
“I’ve been rural for many years. But aren’t they always at war with someone?”
The ensign looked startled. “Not unless it’s to protect the peace of the galaxies. Earth is a peace-loving…” he cut him off.
“Yes, I know. But how long have you been at war with the Delgarts? I thought they were our allies under some Treaty Pact or other?”
The spaceman’s face contorted in a picture of conditioned hatred. “We’ve been after the bastards since they jumped one of our mining planets outside their cluster.” He twisted his lips in open loathing. “We’ll clean the bastards out soon enough! Teach them to jump the peaceful Earthmen.”
He wished he could shut out the words. He had heard the same story all the way from A Centauri IX and back. Someone had always jumped someone else … someone was always at war with someone else … there were always bastards to be cleaned out … never any peace … never any peace …
This is an anti-war story, but a weak one. I have the feeling that it was written just to "fill a gap" in the collection.
There are all kinds of "Pains" and we all have already felt one or several in our lives. If you’ve never felt any pain, you’re either an alien or so cold-hearted that your demise from this world won’t matter at all.
One of the most hurtful pains is that of love. Theodore Sturgeon said: There’s no absence of love in the world, only worthy places to put it.
If we can't find that "place" and find ourselves alone and unloved, well... we all felt that shattering pain already.
Another one is the pain from the thought of dying alone. I know! everyone is "alone" when the moment comes.
The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—
(Emily Dickinson)
We’ve all at one moment or another felt the fear of that hour awaiting to strike for all of us in a more or less near future. And the thought that we can "go down" without having been beheld as a loved one is more painful than the deed in itself.
I believe that it was what Harlan Ellison tried to tell us with this collection of short stories; Because there’s only one thing that links us as human beings: the universality of our pain and the commonality of our need to go out bravely.
That the most significant aspect in life is to love and be loved and the need of living a worthy life: I’m sure when it comes right down to it, the most ignominious life is better than no life at all, but again and again, I find the answer coming from somewhere too noble to be within myself: “What for?” Staying alive only has merit if one does it with dignity, with purpose, with responsibility to his fellow man. If these are absent, then living is a sluglike thing, more a matter of habit than worth.
As usual with Ellison, you can love or hate him, but you can hardly ignore him. For this review, I opted, like before, for other H.E. books to comment on each story individually.
Paingod
Pain comes to all of us in many packages: physical, emotional, psychosomatic... You name it. What if "Pain" were distributed randomly by a "god" appointed to the position, commanded by an immemorial collective conscience of beings called "Ethos", the self-appointed responsible for the balance between reason and passion in the Universe?
It is the function of that "god" to dispense pain for our own benefit according to the disposition, character or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person and the mesured dollops of melancholy as prescribed by the Ethos... in the immortal words of Mark Twain: If one really believes that there is an all-powerful Deity, and one looks around at the condition of the universe, one is inevitably led to the conclusion that God is an evil crook.
So what would happen if this "god" experienced the same pain he often inflicts on others?
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
The mass of men thus serve the State, not primarily as men, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, jailers, police, etc... they place themselves on a level with wood, earth, and stones; and perhaps wooden men can be made that will also serve the purpose... Others, like most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and civil servants, serve the state and, as they rarely make moral distinctions, they are likely to serve the Devil, as much as God. Very few, like heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the broadest sense, and Men, also serve the state with their consciences, and therefore necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies.
(Henry David Thoreau, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE)
Are you a non-conformist? Are you sure? If you are, the "Ticktockman" is waiting for you.
Do you use Time, or do you serve the Time?
Are you certain of your individuality or your pride of being a cog in the "Machine"?
"Repent!" The Ticktockman absorbs all resistance. "To repent" is to lose oneself in the eternal omnipotent ecstasy of Time, which embodies all Past, Present, and Future.
“You are a nonconformist.”
"That used to not be a crime."
"It is now. Live in the world around you.
And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock...”
And one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we will be slaves of the schedule of the system...
The Crackpots
Madness is the order of the day for this story.
Harlan Ellison, with it, pushes us to ask ourselves:
Am I a proper Kyben mind? A good, logical thinker; the administrative type, you know? Or am I a "Crackpot"? A non-conformist master of the odd and weird?
Eccentricity, madness, lunacy or just idiosyncratic behaviour; some psychologists support that we all, each one of us, in some degree, live, in a moment or another of our lives, all those stages of behavioural patterns outside the accepted norm.
Michel Foucault said: madness is not a natural, unchanging thing, but rather depends on the society in which it exists, where cultural, intellectual and economic structures determine how madness is born and experienced.
Didn't anyone ever ask you, “Are you out of your mind?” And didn't you want to answer: “Certainly!”
H. Ellison tells us that "madness" is in the eye of the beholder. What seems insane or just silly to you may be absolutely logical to someone else. Remember that as you read.
P.S.
This short story demands all the scraps of intelligence we can grasp to understand it, but obviously We wouldn’t expect your simple-celled minds to grasp something like that immediately, after all, we are mad!
Sleeping Dogs
If a male mind is blocked in a manic obsession that tunnels the vision, what is the amount of stupidity it can accumulate?
Military leaders (or any other kind) come in different shapes and sizes. Some are blind to their own flaws. Others are moved by ambition, stupidity, cowardice or sheer evil, and commit barbarous acts.
The patriarchy is a young concept. Human society was mostly matriarchal, woman-centred with goddess-worshipping early forms of religions, from the Paleolithic era (1.5 to 2 million years ago), until sometime around 3000 BCE.
Evidence of matriarchal societies has always existed, although heavily filtered by the narrow minds of Christian missionaries. Before them, Herodotus frightened us with stories of the Amazons as "man-killers" or, later theological depictions of the sinful Eve, passing through the witch hunt and burn epoch, and the myth of inferior female intellectual capacity, radically limited, and in certain societies banned completely, the women's ability to actively contribute to the management of society's affairs, relegating them to a secondary or even irrelevant role except to what concerns reproduction.
Which has been proven to be truly stupid and reductive of the Human Being as a creature possessing a self-conscious intelligence. At the very least, what we are doing is wasting more than 50% of human intellectual capacity and resources, since there are more women than men.
If a man says something in a forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong? (Sir Ken Robinson)
So, how to read and digest a story that says that sexism is stupid and that a woman can think more rationally and efficiently than a man? Obviously (if you are a man) with a great amount of emotional and intellectual openness and a good dose of painkillers for headaches and antacids for bad digestion. After all, "all men" handle rejection; they just don't handle it well.
Bright Eyes
The Creator's hopeless despair and the futility of creation are the themes of this story.
In a condemned world, the question echoes in silence without obtaining the answer to "Why"?
Putting aside religious considerations and entering the mist of sterile speculation, what would a Creator feel beholding the self-immolation of his creation in an orgy of violence and destruction?
The dead were everywhere, sighing soundlessly with milk-white eyes at a tomorrow that had never come... This was the last of it, the last of the race of men. Dust and dead.
And the last of the demiurges, the abandoned sentinel, falls to his knees, weeping tears of infinite sadness, a lament for an entire past condemned by a lost future. A poignant lament for those who lived and passed, condemning him to live in the dark and melancholy silence of eternity. In the melody, never to be heard again, it was all in vain.
So Bright Eyes - never Man - was the last man on Earth. Guardian of a silent cemetery; tomb without an echo, a monument to foolishness, to the absurdity of nobility.
The Discarded
People? No, Discards...
Bitter betrayal is the core of this story. You can’t trust an Earthman!
People have been worshipping the "Barbie & Ken" myth for too long, now.
In the words of Ellison (in 1959) We have a pathological lemming drive to conceal our age, lift our faces, dress like overblown Shirley Temples, black that grey in the hair, live a Lie. Whatever happened to grow old gracefully, the reverence of maturity, the search for character as differentiated from superficial comeliness? It be a disease, I warn you. It will rot you from the inside, while the outside glows. It will escalate into a culture that can never tolerate The Discarded.
Ringing any bells? Do any TV commercials come to mind? How many of these advertisements to lose weight, eliminate wrinkles, prevent baldness or "stop" ageing can we see on television and billboards around the city in a day?
Horribly deformed mutants exiled from the sight of "normal" human beings... Here Ellison creates a parable around the confrontation between the physical ugliness of the mutant exiled and the much darker inner ugliness of human nature.
Wanted in Surgery
When you become obsolete, you are "shelved".
Not even the best writers are above producing weak stories.
In this, Ellison joins the ranks of the Luddites, attacks technological development and rekindles the flames of the protests against machines and automatisms that started about 200 years ago in England, criticising the fact that improved mechanical performance isn't enough to fill the void created by the lack of emotional involvement of the machines.
This story made me think of an ironic joke I saw on a website: Luddite invents the machine to destroy technology quicker.
I think that somehow Ellison missed the "point" here: Machines are not the problem, as usual, human beings are the problem, with "the progress at any cost" and mostly with the ironic pathetic motto "profit at all costs".
Since machines have evolved to the point where they can now replicate the work of our minds and not just our bodies, no job is safe from machines. According to James Lovelock, whose opinions we can't discard lightly, AIs will be the next evolutionary step and the inheritors and keepers of Human Intelligence.
This vision of the future has been pointing to a "game", in which there can only be one loser: Humankind.
Deeper than the Darkness
Mutantes everywhere... Evil X-Man from the 50s without an agenda or purpose.
“Don’t you even know who your planet’s at war with?”
“I’ve been rural for many years. But aren’t they always at war with someone?”
The ensign looked startled. “Not unless it’s to protect the peace of the galaxies. Earth is a peace-loving…” he cut him off.
“Yes, I know. But how long have you been at war with the Delgarts? I thought they were our allies under some Treaty Pact or other?”
The spaceman’s face contorted in a picture of conditioned hatred. “We’ve been after the bastards since they jumped one of our mining planets outside their cluster.” He twisted his lips in open loathing. “We’ll clean the bastards out soon enough! Teach them to jump the peaceful Earthmen.”
He wished he could shut out the words. He had heard the same story all the way from A Centauri IX and back. Someone had always jumped someone else … someone was always at war with someone else … there were always bastards to be cleaned out … never any peace … never any peace …
This is an anti-war story, but a weak one. I have the feeling that it was written just to "fill a gap" in the collection.
December 27, 2025
Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) was eccentric, egotistical, outspoken, and perhaps a genius. This is a collection of seven stories, published in 1965, all dark visions..
1. Paingod ****1/2
2."Repent, Harlequin!"said the Ticktockman *****
3.The Crackpots ****
4. Bright Eyes ***
5. The Discarded ****
6. Wanted in Surgery *** 1/2
7. Deeper Than Darkness ****
NOTE: After reading other reviews, I realize I missed an eighth story! "Sleeping Dogs." Will have to find the book and read that one. Sorry to make such a dumb mistake.
Fortunately, there are other reviews on Goodreads...thank goodness for Goodreads!
1. Paingod ****1/2
2."Repent, Harlequin!"said the Ticktockman *****
3.The Crackpots ****
4. Bright Eyes ***
5. The Discarded ****
6. Wanted in Surgery *** 1/2
7. Deeper Than Darkness ****
NOTE: After reading other reviews, I realize I missed an eighth story! "Sleeping Dogs." Will have to find the book and read that one. Sorry to make such a dumb mistake.
Fortunately, there are other reviews on Goodreads...thank goodness for Goodreads!
November 30, 2008
4.5 stars. Very good collection of stories. The title story is excellent but my personal favorites from this collection were (1) The Discarded (worthy of 5 stars), (2) Bright Eyes (also worthy of five stars) and, of course, "Repent Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman.
September 23, 2015
The Basics
If you know Ellison, then you know he’s almost exclusively a writer of short fiction. This is a collection of just a small fraction of that fiction. A very small fraction, as there are only eight stories to be found here. Yet there is something interesting about this one. There’s a theme: pain.
My Thoughts
I really love Harlan Ellison. And before I nitpick one story in this collection in particular, which will probably happen at the end of this review, can I just say that even his weakest stories are stronger than other people’s best work? He’s that kind of writer. His worst can still be some of the best stuff you’ve ever read, and yet you wind up holding him to such an immense standard that you can’t excuse it either. That’s the power of this guy.
Trying to review a collection of short stories can be difficult. But I’ll start by saying that “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” can be found in this one. It’s considered one of his most famous works, and if you are interested in Ellison, you can’t pass it up. I was delighted to finally get a chance to read it here after hearing about it for so long. It’s that perfect blend of absurdity and ultimately sadness that makes the theme of pain resonate with even more power. It also goes to show that dystopia, as a genre, has more life in it than most authors can muster.
Another gem I have to mention is “Deeper Than the Darkness”. I feel a bit like a kid obsessed with hyperbole when I think of this one, because I really just want to scream from the mountaintops that it was awesome. It’s about a man who’s a firestarter. Like think Stephen King Firestarter. With a lot of the same struggles for the main character. It just goes to show that there is an innate fear of a simultaneous lack of control while being controlled by others that can be a story-telling goldmine in the right hands.
Here comes the nitpick. “Wanted In Surgery”. Machines have been created to replace doctors. The age-old fear of being obsolete. That’s a very real thing, the idea that you’re replaceable. It becomes even more real as technology advances. But the fears the main character, a surgeon outsourced by a robot, feels come off as pure melodrama. The machines haven’t even committed any crimes, but he finds he instinctively hates them. Ellison tries so hard to impart how soulless and heartless and unfeeling a machine is, that you need a human with a good bedside manner to make a good doctor. But none of it really came across for me.
He wanted the reader to get angry at even something as mundane as cleaning robots and feel a passionate resistance against any technological assistance of any kind, and it just makes me wonder how horrified he must be at where we’ve arrived. Which is valid, but this was the sort of story that wants to grab you and shake you and make you agree. And if you don’t, you’ll find yourself more amused by the protagonist’s hangups than anything.
Final Rating
4/5
If you know Ellison, then you know he’s almost exclusively a writer of short fiction. This is a collection of just a small fraction of that fiction. A very small fraction, as there are only eight stories to be found here. Yet there is something interesting about this one. There’s a theme: pain.
My Thoughts
I really love Harlan Ellison. And before I nitpick one story in this collection in particular, which will probably happen at the end of this review, can I just say that even his weakest stories are stronger than other people’s best work? He’s that kind of writer. His worst can still be some of the best stuff you’ve ever read, and yet you wind up holding him to such an immense standard that you can’t excuse it either. That’s the power of this guy.
Trying to review a collection of short stories can be difficult. But I’ll start by saying that “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” can be found in this one. It’s considered one of his most famous works, and if you are interested in Ellison, you can’t pass it up. I was delighted to finally get a chance to read it here after hearing about it for so long. It’s that perfect blend of absurdity and ultimately sadness that makes the theme of pain resonate with even more power. It also goes to show that dystopia, as a genre, has more life in it than most authors can muster.
Another gem I have to mention is “Deeper Than the Darkness”. I feel a bit like a kid obsessed with hyperbole when I think of this one, because I really just want to scream from the mountaintops that it was awesome. It’s about a man who’s a firestarter. Like think Stephen King Firestarter. With a lot of the same struggles for the main character. It just goes to show that there is an innate fear of a simultaneous lack of control while being controlled by others that can be a story-telling goldmine in the right hands.
Here comes the nitpick. “Wanted In Surgery”. Machines have been created to replace doctors. The age-old fear of being obsolete. That’s a very real thing, the idea that you’re replaceable. It becomes even more real as technology advances. But the fears the main character, a surgeon outsourced by a robot, feels come off as pure melodrama. The machines haven’t even committed any crimes, but he finds he instinctively hates them. Ellison tries so hard to impart how soulless and heartless and unfeeling a machine is, that you need a human with a good bedside manner to make a good doctor. But none of it really came across for me.
He wanted the reader to get angry at even something as mundane as cleaning robots and feel a passionate resistance against any technological assistance of any kind, and it just makes me wonder how horrified he must be at where we’ve arrived. Which is valid, but this was the sort of story that wants to grab you and shake you and make you agree. And if you don’t, you’ll find yourself more amused by the protagonist’s hangups than anything.
Final Rating
4/5
June 18, 2014
Another good collection from Ellison. This contains a couple of his really good ones, including "Repent Harlequin."
February 20, 2015
Paingod and Other Delusions is a 1965 short story collection by Harlan Ellison. According to the introduction, all the stories selected for inclusion include a variation on the theme of intense pain. This is obvious in some stories, like “Paingod” and “The Discarded”, but it seemed a stretch for some of the others (“Crackpots”, “Repent”). Like most of Ellison’s collections in the 1960’s, this one contains a couple of very good stories but is a mixed bag overall.
My favorite stories were “Deeper Than the Darkness” and “The Discarded”, both of which dealt with classes of people—mutants, telepaths, and pyrotics (firestarters)--treated as outcasts by mainstream society. Ellison would go on, years later, to deal with the same subject in more depth as consultant and writer on one of my favorite science fiction television shows, Babylon 5.
“Paingod” – This is the story of a minor deity whose job is to bring pain to life forms across the universe. It’s a fun concept, but it feels under-developed, and I could see the ending coming. Ellison would go on to write bigger, better stories about gods and god-like beings later in his career.
“Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman” – Ellison’s most famous work, the one that put him on the map so to speak. It won both a Hugo and a Nebula. It is widely cited as the most often anthologized short story in the English language. It’s never been one of my personal favorites—I find it flamboyant and silly—but it is an important and influential story in the history of science fiction.
“The Crackpots” was the first story in Ellison’s Earth-Kyba war cycle. I disliked it intensely. It features some of the same themes as “Repent”, a societal struggle between beaurecrats/conformists and artists/innovators, but it is too contrived to be taken seriously.
“Sleeping Dogs” is (I think) the final story in the Earth-Kyba cycle, and is only included in editions of this book published after 1975. This is a much better story, with a terrific ending.
“Bright Eyes” – Another character-from-myth story. This one has some brutal apocalyptic imagery, but (much like “Paingod”) feels under-developed and incomplete.
“Wanted in Surgery” – A cautionary tale about man’s growing dependency on technology. Reminded me of Asimov’s Robot novels, only taking the opposite side of the debate. it’s overwritten but interesting nonetheless.
My favorite stories were “Deeper Than the Darkness” and “The Discarded”, both of which dealt with classes of people—mutants, telepaths, and pyrotics (firestarters)--treated as outcasts by mainstream society. Ellison would go on, years later, to deal with the same subject in more depth as consultant and writer on one of my favorite science fiction television shows, Babylon 5.
“Paingod” – This is the story of a minor deity whose job is to bring pain to life forms across the universe. It’s a fun concept, but it feels under-developed, and I could see the ending coming. Ellison would go on to write bigger, better stories about gods and god-like beings later in his career.
“Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman” – Ellison’s most famous work, the one that put him on the map so to speak. It won both a Hugo and a Nebula. It is widely cited as the most often anthologized short story in the English language. It’s never been one of my personal favorites—I find it flamboyant and silly—but it is an important and influential story in the history of science fiction.
“The Crackpots” was the first story in Ellison’s Earth-Kyba war cycle. I disliked it intensely. It features some of the same themes as “Repent”, a societal struggle between beaurecrats/conformists and artists/innovators, but it is too contrived to be taken seriously.
“Sleeping Dogs” is (I think) the final story in the Earth-Kyba cycle, and is only included in editions of this book published after 1975. This is a much better story, with a terrific ending.
“Bright Eyes” – Another character-from-myth story. This one has some brutal apocalyptic imagery, but (much like “Paingod”) feels under-developed and incomplete.
“Wanted in Surgery” – A cautionary tale about man’s growing dependency on technology. Reminded me of Asimov’s Robot novels, only taking the opposite side of the debate. it’s overwritten but interesting nonetheless.
Read
May 24, 2019ARE YOU AWARE OF HOW MUCH PAIN THERE IS IN THE WORLD?
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Some weeks ago I finished reading the 1965 Harlan Ellison paperback anthology 'PAINGOD' and then, the other day whilst waiting in a doctor's office, I finished reading it for a second time with a maniacal grin on my face that likely alarmed those around me...
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Mr Ellison, in his curmudgeonly wisecracking snarl, exemplifies the strain of sci fi/speculative fiction I love best--short tightly written stories that take a wacky idea like the absurdity of punctuality ('Repent, Harlequin!') or the possibility of a manhating machine ('I Have No Mouth...') and carry the concept to its logical fantastical conclusion. Therein lies the beauty of this genre for me: the freedom to explore human problems and human solutions in bizarre scenarios that, when written by capable hands, feel more real and truthful than the dull grey fog of our reality. In this anthology, the master's fantastical words are deepened by inclusion of short intros to each story that, for me, are worth the price of admission alone. This book covers several decades of his career and as such the story quality is uneven but there are very few anthologies I've read thus far that have compelled to reread them in such short order. Recommended.
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#harlanellison #paingod #scifi #sciencefiction #speculativefiction #anthology #paperback #halfpricebooks
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Some weeks ago I finished reading the 1965 Harlan Ellison paperback anthology 'PAINGOD' and then, the other day whilst waiting in a doctor's office, I finished reading it for a second time with a maniacal grin on my face that likely alarmed those around me...
•
Mr Ellison, in his curmudgeonly wisecracking snarl, exemplifies the strain of sci fi/speculative fiction I love best--short tightly written stories that take a wacky idea like the absurdity of punctuality ('Repent, Harlequin!') or the possibility of a manhating machine ('I Have No Mouth...') and carry the concept to its logical fantastical conclusion. Therein lies the beauty of this genre for me: the freedom to explore human problems and human solutions in bizarre scenarios that, when written by capable hands, feel more real and truthful than the dull grey fog of our reality. In this anthology, the master's fantastical words are deepened by inclusion of short intros to each story that, for me, are worth the price of admission alone. This book covers several decades of his career and as such the story quality is uneven but there are very few anthologies I've read thus far that have compelled to reread them in such short order. Recommended.
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#harlanellison #paingod #scifi #sciencefiction #speculativefiction #anthology #paperback #halfpricebooks
July 1, 2020
As the title suggests, these are stories which examine pain. Other themes are man vs. machine, "othering" and the various ways one may feel trapped. The strongest stories are placed earliest in the order of the collection. There are plenty of introductory notes as well as commentary from the author.
November 13, 2020
Paingod (4/5)
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the TickTockMan (5/5)
The Crackpots (2/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
Sleeping Dogs (4/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
Bright Eyes (3/5)
The Discarded (4/5)
Wanted In Surgery (3/5)
Deeper Than the Darkness (4/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the TickTockMan (5/5)
The Crackpots (2/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
Sleeping Dogs (4/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
Bright Eyes (3/5)
The Discarded (4/5)
Wanted In Surgery (3/5)
Deeper Than the Darkness (4/5) (Earth/Kyben War)
August 10, 2023
I think the TikTok man and the discarded were the best stories.
Pretty fun overall!
Pretty fun overall!
May 28, 2008
I watched an excellent documentary on Ellison at a film festival in Toronto a month ago so I was excited to read his stuff as so many people had described it as transcending genre and most literature and having a profound effect on people.
In truth, though, nothing blew me away in this collection. I'd read "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktock Man" in the past but I didn't enjoy it as much this time around despite knowing now that it's one of the most lauded short stories ever.
It was a decent read. The format of this version was really annoying... it was an "e-read" which I don't understand. Maybe it was some effort of publishing on demand in the past. It didn't have the individual story titles in the header, instead every page said "e-reads" which is pointless. I'd have to flip back every time to remember the name of each story I was reading.
Generally, I think I'm enjoying Ellison's introductions more than the books. He's a killer introduction-writer and I've heard there's a book out there compiling them.
In truth, though, nothing blew me away in this collection. I'd read "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktock Man" in the past but I didn't enjoy it as much this time around despite knowing now that it's one of the most lauded short stories ever.
It was a decent read. The format of this version was really annoying... it was an "e-read" which I don't understand. Maybe it was some effort of publishing on demand in the past. It didn't have the individual story titles in the header, instead every page said "e-reads" which is pointless. I'd have to flip back every time to remember the name of each story I was reading.
Generally, I think I'm enjoying Ellison's introductions more than the books. He's a killer introduction-writer and I've heard there's a book out there compiling them.
August 16, 2012
First, understand that I downgraded this book due to the eBook quality--which is poor, at best. There is no reason to charge (or pay) $9.99 for sloppy formatting--there are $.99 eBooks of better publishing quality out there. At least try to make the italicized fonts consistent.
But reading this let me know that I had a bit of distant idolatry of Ellison. I had seen interviews with him and had only read "Repent, Harlequin," which is included here, but this is the first sustained collection of his writing I had sit down to read. There is a Phillip K. Dick essence to him--som wonderful ideas, but poor execution--bland summary, expositionary dialogue, little sense of character--characteristics, but little more. Even the story I thought I loved I found lacking scenery, social character rather than individual. A (probably necessary) deflation of my admiration.
And Harlan's repeated introductions, including the culminating THREE that have evidently collected over the years of this collection, just get skippable.
But reading this let me know that I had a bit of distant idolatry of Ellison. I had seen interviews with him and had only read "Repent, Harlequin," which is included here, but this is the first sustained collection of his writing I had sit down to read. There is a Phillip K. Dick essence to him--som wonderful ideas, but poor execution--bland summary, expositionary dialogue, little sense of character--characteristics, but little more. Even the story I thought I loved I found lacking scenery, social character rather than individual. A (probably necessary) deflation of my admiration.
And Harlan's repeated introductions, including the culminating THREE that have evidently collected over the years of this collection, just get skippable.
October 24, 2008
I remember furtively reading this paperback in class, the book on my lap, concealed by my desk, then taking it along on a fieldtrip to, of all places, the Field Museum in Chicago, reading it on the bus while the other students sang about "bottles of beer on the wall." Presumably, this was for Introductory Biology during the first year of high school. I was particularly impressed by "Repent Harlequin!" because it was so wierd. The "New Wave" was just striking the banks of my consciousness.
December 29, 2018
Re-reading this after nearly 40 years, I'm struck by how powerful these stories remain. Perhaps they are more potent to me now, with the perspective of my years than when I was a teen, since the psychological and emotional pain expressed in these tales is more akin to older adult matters than youth. Must-read material for any 20th century lit course.
August 30, 2020
Did not finish. Felt he relied too heavily on a mini essays to explain what he meant rather than letting the stories stand on their own. Leaves the reader with the dreaded "so what?" feeling.
September 8, 2024
Très très bon ça. On a là un recueil de 7 nouvelles de science-fiction assez diverses, mais dans le jus des années 80 (petite fixette sur les robots et l’autoritarisme).
J’avais appréhendé une plume assez complexe : PAS DU TOUT. Le style d’Harlan Ellison est direct, avec son grain de folie qui le rend original («Les Fadas», «Arlequin et l’homme tic-tac»). Mais je l’ai encore plus aimé quand il a usé de cette sf pour nous livrer un discours humaniste (Bradbury ??) («Logos-Vengeur», «Plus impénétrables que les ténèbres»).
Mon récit préféré, «Œil-de-Magie», a été une immense claque. Je ne peux pas en dire plus car il est très court, mais il a résonné en moi comme un texte ne l’avait pas fait depuis longtemps.
Tout n’est pas parfait dans ce recueil mais j’ai découvert un excellent auteur de sf un peu fou, et j’en suis ravi.
J’avais appréhendé une plume assez complexe : PAS DU TOUT. Le style d’Harlan Ellison est direct, avec son grain de folie qui le rend original («Les Fadas», «Arlequin et l’homme tic-tac»). Mais je l’ai encore plus aimé quand il a usé de cette sf pour nous livrer un discours humaniste (Bradbury ??) («Logos-Vengeur», «Plus impénétrables que les ténèbres»).
Mon récit préféré, «Œil-de-Magie», a été une immense claque. Je ne peux pas en dire plus car il est très court, mais il a résonné en moi comme un texte ne l’avait pas fait depuis longtemps.
Tout n’est pas parfait dans ce recueil mais j’ai découvert un excellent auteur de sf un peu fou, et j’en suis ravi.
July 10, 2024
Paingod: “Joy without pain is nothing, so pain is a blessing.” Straightforward, easy listening. ***
“Repent, Harlequin!” said the Ticktockman: Imagine if your life was cut short by your tardiness 🤔 *****
The Crackpots: what if you were actually watching geniuses doing “crazy things”? This was an interesting story! ****
Sleeping Dogs: we should listen to women more often 🫣 ****
Bright Eyes: I liked listening to this story, but I’m not sure I got it 🤔 *
The Discarded: the scariest words in the English language, “I am from the government. I am here to help.” *****
Wanted in Surgery: human involvement is the key too. Humans win against the robots and greed. *****
Deeper than the Darkness: do what is right for your heart and soul. ****
“Repent, Harlequin!” said the Ticktockman: Imagine if your life was cut short by your tardiness 🤔 *****
The Crackpots: what if you were actually watching geniuses doing “crazy things”? This was an interesting story! ****
Sleeping Dogs: we should listen to women more often 🫣 ****
Bright Eyes: I liked listening to this story, but I’m not sure I got it 🤔 *
The Discarded: the scariest words in the English language, “I am from the government. I am here to help.” *****
Wanted in Surgery: human involvement is the key too. Humans win against the robots and greed. *****
Deeper than the Darkness: do what is right for your heart and soul. ****
July 8, 2023
you always have to explain everything
August 14, 2024
Amazing short stories.
June 8, 2025
This one was even better than I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream and honestly I might as well be a fan of Harlan Ellison now cuz he's yet to miss.
Paingod itself was great tho, I in no way agree with the message it was trying to impart but I do know it’s the kind of short story that will stay with me for a very very long time and yet it honestly wasn't even top 3 best stories here for me. The order goes:
3- “REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN:
This one had both a constant sense of whimsy and palpable underlying bleakness but the unique structure in which it was told is the highlight and will be the main reason it stays with me for a long time.
2- The Crackpots:
“Madness is in the eye of the beholder”
Such ridiculous setting with so many twists, lots of worldbuilding & depth to the characters all in this short story. I doubted this one will be surpassed in this collection but leave it to the creator to prove me wrong. It would've been the best Short Story I've ever read if not for-
1- Wanted In Surgery :
As a medical doctor, this hit me on a personal level. I've seen & read lots of cautionary tales about machines/AIs but never from the medical perspective. The horror specifically how convincing the case were for them had me defeated until the end. Best Short Story ever for me.
The other short stories were still at least good like:
The Discarded which was about pretty privilege and the vain treatment of those deemed undesirable and as such was depressingly infuriating and the fact it's an allegory to our usual reality makes it all the more so. Perfectly succeeded in its message which I'm in agreement with. or
Bright Eyes a story that reminds me of the Enar race from Sun Eater. Making me wonder if they were in any way inspired by it 🤔 but those familiar with Sun Eater and my relationship with it should know this is automatically good off that alone and of course both
Sleeping Dogs and Deeper Than The Darkness (The Crackpots too in some manner):
They both highlight the brutality, ridiculousness, futility and all sort of negativity associated with warfare beyond the obvious lives loss. They've also now familiarised me with the Earth-Kyba war series and so I’ll be searching out any of the short stories from that collection I can get my hands on.
All in all, this collection has made me as fan of this author and I'll endeavour to go through his whole library in the foreseeable future.
Paingod itself was great tho, I in no way agree with the message it was trying to impart but I do know it’s the kind of short story that will stay with me for a very very long time and yet it honestly wasn't even top 3 best stories here for me. The order goes:
3- “REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN:
This one had both a constant sense of whimsy and palpable underlying bleakness but the unique structure in which it was told is the highlight and will be the main reason it stays with me for a long time.
2- The Crackpots:
“Madness is in the eye of the beholder”
Such ridiculous setting with so many twists, lots of worldbuilding & depth to the characters all in this short story. I doubted this one will be surpassed in this collection but leave it to the creator to prove me wrong. It would've been the best Short Story I've ever read if not for-
1- Wanted In Surgery :
As a medical doctor, this hit me on a personal level. I've seen & read lots of cautionary tales about machines/AIs but never from the medical perspective. The horror specifically how convincing the case were for them had me defeated until the end. Best Short Story ever for me.
The other short stories were still at least good like:
The Discarded which was about pretty privilege and the vain treatment of those deemed undesirable and as such was depressingly infuriating and the fact it's an allegory to our usual reality makes it all the more so. Perfectly succeeded in its message which I'm in agreement with. or
Bright Eyes a story that reminds me of the Enar race from Sun Eater. Making me wonder if they were in any way inspired by it 🤔 but those familiar with Sun Eater and my relationship with it should know this is automatically good off that alone and of course both
Sleeping Dogs and Deeper Than The Darkness (The Crackpots too in some manner):
They both highlight the brutality, ridiculousness, futility and all sort of negativity associated with warfare beyond the obvious lives loss. They've also now familiarised me with the Earth-Kyba war series and so I’ll be searching out any of the short stories from that collection I can get my hands on.
All in all, this collection has made me as fan of this author and I'll endeavour to go through his whole library in the foreseeable future.
October 2, 2024
very enjoyable book, i enjoyed reading the dysopian supernatural world, heres some excerpts which stuck out to me:
YOUR BASIC CROWN OF THORNS:
“Everybody needs to belong to somebody. Sometime. For an hour, a day, a year, forever...it’s all the same. And when you’ve paid dues on a bunch of decades without having made the proper linkup, you come to live with a pain that is a dull ache, unlocalized, suffusing every inch of your skin and throbbing like a bruise down on the bone.”
“People sense the pain, and they shy away from it, because they’ve felt it themselves, and they don’t want to get contaminated. ”
PAINGOD:
“For without pain there can be no pleasure. Without sadness there can be no happiness. Without misery, there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. ”
“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN:
“ He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades before. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles-middle-class circles-it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful. In others, there was only snickering, those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties. But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces) ; a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta.”
“You don’t call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of your life.”
“How did we get into this position, where a laughing, irresponsible japer of jabberwocky and jive could disrupt our entire economic and cultural life with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jelly beans...”
“And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun’s passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don’t keep the schedule tight.”
“Some snicker and call it an altar. Others frown in disapproval and call it a pedestal, or a Playboy bed. It’s none of those. It’s very functional, and serves an emotional purpose that is none of their business, but lord how quick they are to label it the way they see it, and lay their value-judgment on it, and me.”
THE CRACKPOTS
“ The Superior squirmed visibly. “Well, no, not exactly. What I mean is, they’ve-you might say disappeared.”
Themus’ eyes opened wider in surprise. “Disappeared? That indicates free choice.”
“These were not the achievements of madmen.
But they were mad!
They had to be. All the things which seemed mysterious and superhuman were offset by a million acts of out-and-out insanity. They lived in a world of no standardization, no conformity at all. There was no way to gauge the way these people would act, as you could with the Kyben of the stars. It was-it was-well, insane!”
“The Crackpots were the nonconformists. They were the ones who kept coming up with the new ideas. They were the ones who painted the great works of art. They were the ones who composed the most memorable music. They were the ones who overflowed the lunatic asylums. They thought up the great ideas, true, but they were a thorn in the side of the Stuffs, because they couldn’t be predicted. They kept running off in all directions at once. ”
“ “Fools! We threw you out! We didn’t want you tripping all over our heels, annoying us. We weren’t left behind-you were thrown away!”
Themus’s breath caught in his throat. It was true. He knew it was true. He had no doubts. It was so. In the short space of a few seconds the whole structure of his life had been inverted. He was no longer a member of the elite corps of the elite race of the universe; he was a clod, an unwanted superfluousity, a tin soldier, a carbon copy.”
“ “Certainly we allow you to rule the Galaxy. It keeps you out of trouble, and out of our hair. You rule the Galaxy, but we rule you!”
SLEEPING DOGS:
“ Ferraro despised him. It was the only word that fit. She despised everything about him, but this blind servitude to cause was the most loathsome aspect of his character.
And even that was futile, as Globar and Schall burned. Who would speak the elegy for the thousands, perhaps millions, who now burned among the stones of the twin cities?”
BRIGHT EYES:
“Bright Eyes went to him. “They are the saddest creatures of all. They are alone.” ”
“ And then it was, that Bright Eyes sank to his knees, crying. Tears that had not been seen since before Man had come from caves, tears that Bright Eyes had never known. Infinite sadness. Cried. Cried for the ghosts of the creatures with hair, cried for Men. For Man. Each Man. The Man who had done away with himself so absurdly, so completely. Bright Eyes, on his knees, sorrowing for the ones who had lived here, and were gone, leaving him to the night, and the silence, and eternity. A melody never to be heard again.”
“ So Bright Eyes-never Man-was the last man on Earth. Keeper of a silent graveyard; echoless tomb monument to the foolishness, the absurdity, of nobility.”
“The reasoning of the rationale is a simple one, we worship the Pepsi Generation. We have a pathological lemming drive to conceal our age, lift our faces, dress like overblown Shirley Temples, black that grey in the hair, live a lie. What ever happened to growing old gracefully, the reverence of maturity, the search for character as differentiated from superficial comeliness? It be a disease, I warn you. It will rot you from the inside, while the outside glows. It will escalate into a culture that can never tolerate”
WANTED IN SURGERY:
“ The phymechs below were proceeding with the delicate operation. One of the telescoping, snakelike tentacles of one phymech had a wafer-thin circular saw on it, and as Thomas watched, the saw sliced down, and they could hear the buzz of steel meeting skull.”
“Like scraps from the table...and watch us while we do it! What are we, dogs? To be treated like pets? I tell you fm going crazy, Murray! I go home at night and find myself even cutting my steak as though it were heart tissue. Anything, anything at all, just to remind myself that I was trained for surgery. My God! When I think of all the years, all the sweat, all the gutting and starving, just to come to this! Murray, where’s it going to end?”
DEEPER THAN THE DARKNESS:
“They listened almost reverently, with a desperation born of men who know they are severed from their home worlds, who know they will go out and out and seldom come back. He sang of space, and he sang of land, and he sang of the peace that is left for Man-all men, no matter how many arms they had, or what their skin was colored-when he has expended the last little bit of Eternity to which he is entitled.”
YOUR BASIC CROWN OF THORNS:
“Everybody needs to belong to somebody. Sometime. For an hour, a day, a year, forever...it’s all the same. And when you’ve paid dues on a bunch of decades without having made the proper linkup, you come to live with a pain that is a dull ache, unlocalized, suffusing every inch of your skin and throbbing like a bruise down on the bone.”
“People sense the pain, and they shy away from it, because they’ve felt it themselves, and they don’t want to get contaminated. ”
PAINGOD:
“For without pain there can be no pleasure. Without sadness there can be no happiness. Without misery, there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. ”
“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN:
“ He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades before. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles-middle-class circles-it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful. In others, there was only snickering, those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties. But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces) ; a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta.”
“You don’t call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of your life.”
“How did we get into this position, where a laughing, irresponsible japer of jabberwocky and jive could disrupt our entire economic and cultural life with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jelly beans...”
“And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun’s passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don’t keep the schedule tight.”
“Some snicker and call it an altar. Others frown in disapproval and call it a pedestal, or a Playboy bed. It’s none of those. It’s very functional, and serves an emotional purpose that is none of their business, but lord how quick they are to label it the way they see it, and lay their value-judgment on it, and me.”
THE CRACKPOTS
“ The Superior squirmed visibly. “Well, no, not exactly. What I mean is, they’ve-you might say disappeared.”
Themus’ eyes opened wider in surprise. “Disappeared? That indicates free choice.”
“These were not the achievements of madmen.
But they were mad!
They had to be. All the things which seemed mysterious and superhuman were offset by a million acts of out-and-out insanity. They lived in a world of no standardization, no conformity at all. There was no way to gauge the way these people would act, as you could with the Kyben of the stars. It was-it was-well, insane!”
“The Crackpots were the nonconformists. They were the ones who kept coming up with the new ideas. They were the ones who painted the great works of art. They were the ones who composed the most memorable music. They were the ones who overflowed the lunatic asylums. They thought up the great ideas, true, but they were a thorn in the side of the Stuffs, because they couldn’t be predicted. They kept running off in all directions at once. ”
“ “Fools! We threw you out! We didn’t want you tripping all over our heels, annoying us. We weren’t left behind-you were thrown away!”
Themus’s breath caught in his throat. It was true. He knew it was true. He had no doubts. It was so. In the short space of a few seconds the whole structure of his life had been inverted. He was no longer a member of the elite corps of the elite race of the universe; he was a clod, an unwanted superfluousity, a tin soldier, a carbon copy.”
“ “Certainly we allow you to rule the Galaxy. It keeps you out of trouble, and out of our hair. You rule the Galaxy, but we rule you!”
SLEEPING DOGS:
“ Ferraro despised him. It was the only word that fit. She despised everything about him, but this blind servitude to cause was the most loathsome aspect of his character.
And even that was futile, as Globar and Schall burned. Who would speak the elegy for the thousands, perhaps millions, who now burned among the stones of the twin cities?”
BRIGHT EYES:
“Bright Eyes went to him. “They are the saddest creatures of all. They are alone.” ”
“ And then it was, that Bright Eyes sank to his knees, crying. Tears that had not been seen since before Man had come from caves, tears that Bright Eyes had never known. Infinite sadness. Cried. Cried for the ghosts of the creatures with hair, cried for Men. For Man. Each Man. The Man who had done away with himself so absurdly, so completely. Bright Eyes, on his knees, sorrowing for the ones who had lived here, and were gone, leaving him to the night, and the silence, and eternity. A melody never to be heard again.”
“ So Bright Eyes-never Man-was the last man on Earth. Keeper of a silent graveyard; echoless tomb monument to the foolishness, the absurdity, of nobility.”
“The reasoning of the rationale is a simple one, we worship the Pepsi Generation. We have a pathological lemming drive to conceal our age, lift our faces, dress like overblown Shirley Temples, black that grey in the hair, live a lie. What ever happened to growing old gracefully, the reverence of maturity, the search for character as differentiated from superficial comeliness? It be a disease, I warn you. It will rot you from the inside, while the outside glows. It will escalate into a culture that can never tolerate”
WANTED IN SURGERY:
“ The phymechs below were proceeding with the delicate operation. One of the telescoping, snakelike tentacles of one phymech had a wafer-thin circular saw on it, and as Thomas watched, the saw sliced down, and they could hear the buzz of steel meeting skull.”
“Like scraps from the table...and watch us while we do it! What are we, dogs? To be treated like pets? I tell you fm going crazy, Murray! I go home at night and find myself even cutting my steak as though it were heart tissue. Anything, anything at all, just to remind myself that I was trained for surgery. My God! When I think of all the years, all the sweat, all the gutting and starving, just to come to this! Murray, where’s it going to end?”
DEEPER THAN THE DARKNESS:
“They listened almost reverently, with a desperation born of men who know they are severed from their home worlds, who know they will go out and out and seldom come back. He sang of space, and he sang of land, and he sang of the peace that is left for Man-all men, no matter how many arms they had, or what their skin was colored-when he has expended the last little bit of Eternity to which he is entitled.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2024
Harlan Ellison, the prolific, mind-altering imaginous who writes not to please an audience of optimist, but to those so grossly attuned with our frightful nature, and the unpredictability of whether good times are before us, or rather, behind us. Ellison's books don't skip through fields of dandelions under pastel skies, singing 'What a Wonderful World' - they explore the depths of despair, examine the underbelly of our own morbid existence, and consider the unfathomable crisis of time always advancing toward an end equally as unfathomable.
Of the short stories in this collection, my favorites were: Paingod, "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman, The Crackpots, and The Discarded. All of which were 5/5, excellent prose! Very avant-garde conceptions of god, social division, and a plague that haunts humanity.
Of the short stories in this collection, my favorites were: Paingod, "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman, The Crackpots, and The Discarded. All of which were 5/5, excellent prose! Very avant-garde conceptions of god, social division, and a plague that haunts humanity.
February 23, 2019
Harlan Ellison was a genius writer. Eccentric and egotistical as hell, probably had a napoleonic complex (see the biography documentary on him, “Dreams with Sharp Teeth”) but an absolute genius. I got this book for the multiple award winning short story “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” which was good, but I actually thought there were several better stories in this collection.
As a lover of science fiction I’m finding myself constantly disappointed the majority of the time. It’s so damn hard to find good literature in this genre. This however, is great literature. So satisfying as a reader to be excited by an author and a book each time you reach for it. I absolutely loved his anecdotal musings and introductions between each short story on his thought process at the time. I looked forward to reading those as much as his fiction. Just an absolute joy of a book by a master of his craft.
As a lover of science fiction I’m finding myself constantly disappointed the majority of the time. It’s so damn hard to find good literature in this genre. This however, is great literature. So satisfying as a reader to be excited by an author and a book each time you reach for it. I absolutely loved his anecdotal musings and introductions between each short story on his thought process at the time. I looked forward to reading those as much as his fiction. Just an absolute joy of a book by a master of his craft.
August 15, 2019
I first read this in 1972 and it is definitely science fiction from another era. Written more than 50 years ago, but still seems fresh. Many of the ideas explored are timeless and just as relevant today as they were when Ellison put them to paper. My only complaint is that the stories are relentlessly depressing. Yeah, I know, with a title like Paingod and Other Delusions what should I have expected, right? All that said, I liked it and am looking forward to revisiting the rest of Harlan Ellison's oeuvre.
November 17, 2017
Eight short stories from Ellison. I got this collection because it included “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” And it was great. I think Paingod and Deeper Than The Darkness are the other stand-outs for me, but all of the 8 stories here were really wonderful.
Highly recommended to Fantasy/Science Fiction lovers.
Highly recommended to Fantasy/Science Fiction lovers.
November 7, 2019
A good effort for the most part. Classic dose of Ellison. Some too long, some too short and could probably use some establishing.
I think the best in terms of quality were "Repent Harlequin", "Paingod", "The Discarded", and "Bright Eyes". These others are fine too, I like bits of "Wanted in Surgery" and the rest.
If you like some solid Ellison through good and bad I'd give it a read.
I think the best in terms of quality were "Repent Harlequin", "Paingod", "The Discarded", and "Bright Eyes". These others are fine too, I like bits of "Wanted in Surgery" and the rest.
If you like some solid Ellison through good and bad I'd give it a read.
December 5, 2018
Another fine collection. It's difficult to find a substandard Ellison tale.
September 1, 2013
This book is about pain in various facets. It features an impressive and personal preface in which the author opens open and shows his worries and fears. The book contains a couple of short stories, always in a sci-fi setting. I'll summarize them now. Spoilers ahead!
Paingod
Trente has been appointed by "The Ethos", a collective of quasi immortal beings, as the bringer pain to all living things. The job was done by others before him, but he does not know why they stopped. He distributes pain to beings in "all universes". Although he has no true concept of time he develops concern, caring for the beings into which he induces pain. He travels to Earth to experience first hand what it is like. He recognizes that pain is a necessity in life, like there can be no shadow without light. It is shown how remarkably beautiful things can be created through pain. He returns with this insight and reaffirms his intention to be the Paingod with The Ethos. They applaud him for having grown up: "Adult. You have become adult" they say. They are content that they finally have found someone who "understands the job".
This story strongly relates to the preface, where the author talks about how much pain there is in the world, yet also beauty. That the positive comes with the negative (light and darkness, ying and yang - you get the point).
"Repent, Harlequin" said the Tick-tock-man
This one is about time, and an individual that does not conform to having everything scheduled, planned and timed for him. In this future, time is the most important thing, everything is planned and scheduled. Lifetime is defined by the "master time keeper" (called the "tick-tock-man", colloquially). If you're late for something, the amount is deducted from your total lifetime. When your time is up, you will simply be killed. The main character of the story disguises as a jester and tries to disrupt normal life with certain activities, mostly in a humorous fashion. Ultimately he gets caught and interrogated by the master time keeper. Instead of killing the delinquent he gets re-educated (well, brainwashed). This reminded me on the one hand of "V for vendetta", where the main protagonist lives underground and fights the totalitarian regime in disguise, and of "clockwork orange", where the main character does not fit into society and gets brainwashed as well. This short story though does not go into the same depths as those stories. The High point of the story comes at the end: The ticktock man himself seems to be three minutes late for his job ;-)
The Crackpots
In this story, a group of people from a civilization ruling the galaxy, the Kyben, has the job of watching over the allegedly insane rest of society that is banished on their home world. Themus, the main character is a young "watcher" who has joined the elite watcher organization to keep the "idiots" of the Kyben civilization from interfering with the rest. A strict regimen exists, and watchers that don't perform are sent "to the mines" immediately. In this setting, strange things happen, with the "crackpots" performing seemingly insane activities and Themus reporting them obediently. However at one point he gets contacted and drawn into an underground of Kyben civilization, where he learns that in fact (as is put literally in the introduction) "madness is in the eye of the beholder". It turns out that the society of Kyben at one point split into the creative, productive portion (the so-called "crackpots") and the bureaucratic, administrative (somewhat idiotic) type (the "watchers"). The crackpots think they keep the other portion under control so as to do as they please (they in fact have the technology, so they may be right), whereas it is exactly the other way around for the watchers. Themus is offered to switch sides, which after some troubles he does, to live a freer life.
Sleeping Dogs
Set in the same universe as the previous story, this one is about a conflict between the Kyben and mankind. A concept called "Amicus Hostis" ("friend of the enemy") is used between the two parties, where a representative of the opposite side is present in the battleships. In this case, a Kyba is onboard the Earth ship, which besieges and finally conquers a planet belonging to the Kyben. The Earth commander does so with relentless force, ignoring or at least not awaiting instructions from Earth. The Kyba is angry at the commanders' total disregard for the rules of war and for disrespecting the innocent civilians. The planet is special, because races from all over the galaxy are on this planet. No more Kyben, though, except for the Amicus Hostis, because they committed collective suicide. Something is special about this place, because around the equator, huge black, unconquerable black boxes reside. It is rumored that these house the true rules of this world, and that they let anyone - with peaceful intent - settle on the planet. Of course the commander doesn't care about these rumors and attacks the boxes. After being inert for time immemorial, they suddenly rise after being attacked but the Earth battleship, destroying it in return. A third party has entered the conflict, sleeping dogs have been awakened.
A good straight-forward story. I can't quite grasp the issues the author presented in the foreword about the woman being the strong character in this story. Seems a bit far-fetched for me. Oh well...
Bright Eyes
Ahem, I must admit that in this case the preface to the story was actually more interesting to me than the actual story. Anyways, the author wrote this story after having been inspired by an amateur-made picture of an alien being with bright eyes. In the story, this is the last member of an ancient race, probably living underground. It is stirred into action after it received some "signals", "portents" or whatever you want to call them. It leaves its home forever on a journey, on a mission I didn't fully understand. It seems as if the ancient race purposely made way for mankind to exist and to thrive, but something terrible has happened. The world is in apocalyptic state, with thousands of corpses piling up and blocking rivers, birds flying disorientedly through the air, bleeding and falling to the ground, with cities in ruin. So, the last member of the ancient race, riding a giant rat, has survived its children, and deposits a sack full of skulls. End of story - very bleak. Make out of it what you want...
The Discards
Mankind has messed up Earth. Radioactivity, bacteria, viruses or some disease have caused the mutation of some people. These are outcasts, rejects, and they were collected and perched together in a spaceship somewhere off Earth. The mutations are horrific, and the people are left on their own. Every day some of the discards commits suicide, and the outlook is very bleak. The leader of the discards tries to keep things under control, but when an emissary from Earth comes and reports that the disease is making people mutate more and more, and that only the discards' blood, coming from
the original cause of the mutation, can safe people on Earth a conflict breaks out. This the current leader loses, he gets shot and killed despite his pleas not to trust the Earthmen any more. Hope defeats reason, so the discards give their blood in exchange for the promise of being able to return to Earth. Of course the promise is broken, and instead of the return they get sent the last of the mutated people. Trust no one!
Wanted in surgery
How much power do we give machines? When is too much? Is it already too much? In this story a revolutionary invention means that doctors become superfluous. What happens to the trained doctors? They become mere helps. (Something like this of course isn't new, all the time certain professions die out). In this case one doctor takes the radical changes, mandated by law not too well. He despairs, feeling something is wrong. His frustrations surmount, but he is helpless until an incident which makes him realize that the machines (called "phymechs" - mechanical physicians) are not infallible: While attending to the physical wounds the phymech disregards the human factor. The result: The patient, although mechanically repaired, dies from psychological trauma of awakening during the operation. The doctor realizes that this big news that could change the general attitude towards the phymechs. He conceives the dark plan of purposely killing a patient during an assisted operation to blame the machine. In the end his Hippocratic oath and ethics stop him from killing the patient,a young girl. However, he is approached by a woman from the slums to heal her tetanus-infected husband. Human doctors are banned from practicing, but he does it anyway and gets arrested for it. However his boss, being suspicious over the doctors' general attitudes towards the machines had him followed and finds out, so the doctor goes on trial. He tells his story, and miraculously is acquitted while society rethinks the power they gave the machines. Probably the best story in this book, except for the happy ending.
Deeper than the Darkness
In this final story, also loosely set in the "Kyben universe", a homeless man is discovered that possess the unique ability of being able to start fires with his mind. He is a "psioid", and not alone. There are others, with formalized jobs, for example the telepaths that can read minds and are very handy for interrogation. Problem is, no one can penetrate this man's mind. Earth is, once more, at war with a different civilization. The military command try to force Gunnderson to make the enemies' sun go supernova, but he finds out that short of killing they cannot force him, as the powers of other psioids don't work on him. Gunnderson let a lonely life as a homeless person, and the military promise him hero status, recognition, if he wipes out the enemy civilization. Gunnderson however sees the moral implications and takes the hard route: He flees and becomes a wanderer amongst the stars. He preaches and plays melancholic, sad music, but lives with a good conscience.
Paingod
Trente has been appointed by "The Ethos", a collective of quasi immortal beings, as the bringer pain to all living things. The job was done by others before him, but he does not know why they stopped. He distributes pain to beings in "all universes". Although he has no true concept of time he develops concern, caring for the beings into which he induces pain. He travels to Earth to experience first hand what it is like. He recognizes that pain is a necessity in life, like there can be no shadow without light. It is shown how remarkably beautiful things can be created through pain. He returns with this insight and reaffirms his intention to be the Paingod with The Ethos. They applaud him for having grown up: "Adult. You have become adult" they say. They are content that they finally have found someone who "understands the job".
This story strongly relates to the preface, where the author talks about how much pain there is in the world, yet also beauty. That the positive comes with the negative (light and darkness, ying and yang - you get the point).
"Repent, Harlequin" said the Tick-tock-man
This one is about time, and an individual that does not conform to having everything scheduled, planned and timed for him. In this future, time is the most important thing, everything is planned and scheduled. Lifetime is defined by the "master time keeper" (called the "tick-tock-man", colloquially). If you're late for something, the amount is deducted from your total lifetime. When your time is up, you will simply be killed. The main character of the story disguises as a jester and tries to disrupt normal life with certain activities, mostly in a humorous fashion. Ultimately he gets caught and interrogated by the master time keeper. Instead of killing the delinquent he gets re-educated (well, brainwashed). This reminded me on the one hand of "V for vendetta", where the main protagonist lives underground and fights the totalitarian regime in disguise, and of "clockwork orange", where the main character does not fit into society and gets brainwashed as well. This short story though does not go into the same depths as those stories. The High point of the story comes at the end: The ticktock man himself seems to be three minutes late for his job ;-)
The Crackpots
In this story, a group of people from a civilization ruling the galaxy, the Kyben, has the job of watching over the allegedly insane rest of society that is banished on their home world. Themus, the main character is a young "watcher" who has joined the elite watcher organization to keep the "idiots" of the Kyben civilization from interfering with the rest. A strict regimen exists, and watchers that don't perform are sent "to the mines" immediately. In this setting, strange things happen, with the "crackpots" performing seemingly insane activities and Themus reporting them obediently. However at one point he gets contacted and drawn into an underground of Kyben civilization, where he learns that in fact (as is put literally in the introduction) "madness is in the eye of the beholder". It turns out that the society of Kyben at one point split into the creative, productive portion (the so-called "crackpots") and the bureaucratic, administrative (somewhat idiotic) type (the "watchers"). The crackpots think they keep the other portion under control so as to do as they please (they in fact have the technology, so they may be right), whereas it is exactly the other way around for the watchers. Themus is offered to switch sides, which after some troubles he does, to live a freer life.
Sleeping Dogs
Set in the same universe as the previous story, this one is about a conflict between the Kyben and mankind. A concept called "Amicus Hostis" ("friend of the enemy") is used between the two parties, where a representative of the opposite side is present in the battleships. In this case, a Kyba is onboard the Earth ship, which besieges and finally conquers a planet belonging to the Kyben. The Earth commander does so with relentless force, ignoring or at least not awaiting instructions from Earth. The Kyba is angry at the commanders' total disregard for the rules of war and for disrespecting the innocent civilians. The planet is special, because races from all over the galaxy are on this planet. No more Kyben, though, except for the Amicus Hostis, because they committed collective suicide. Something is special about this place, because around the equator, huge black, unconquerable black boxes reside. It is rumored that these house the true rules of this world, and that they let anyone - with peaceful intent - settle on the planet. Of course the commander doesn't care about these rumors and attacks the boxes. After being inert for time immemorial, they suddenly rise after being attacked but the Earth battleship, destroying it in return. A third party has entered the conflict, sleeping dogs have been awakened.
A good straight-forward story. I can't quite grasp the issues the author presented in the foreword about the woman being the strong character in this story. Seems a bit far-fetched for me. Oh well...
Bright Eyes
Ahem, I must admit that in this case the preface to the story was actually more interesting to me than the actual story. Anyways, the author wrote this story after having been inspired by an amateur-made picture of an alien being with bright eyes. In the story, this is the last member of an ancient race, probably living underground. It is stirred into action after it received some "signals", "portents" or whatever you want to call them. It leaves its home forever on a journey, on a mission I didn't fully understand. It seems as if the ancient race purposely made way for mankind to exist and to thrive, but something terrible has happened. The world is in apocalyptic state, with thousands of corpses piling up and blocking rivers, birds flying disorientedly through the air, bleeding and falling to the ground, with cities in ruin. So, the last member of the ancient race, riding a giant rat, has survived its children, and deposits a sack full of skulls. End of story - very bleak. Make out of it what you want...
The Discards
Mankind has messed up Earth. Radioactivity, bacteria, viruses or some disease have caused the mutation of some people. These are outcasts, rejects, and they were collected and perched together in a spaceship somewhere off Earth. The mutations are horrific, and the people are left on their own. Every day some of the discards commits suicide, and the outlook is very bleak. The leader of the discards tries to keep things under control, but when an emissary from Earth comes and reports that the disease is making people mutate more and more, and that only the discards' blood, coming from
the original cause of the mutation, can safe people on Earth a conflict breaks out. This the current leader loses, he gets shot and killed despite his pleas not to trust the Earthmen any more. Hope defeats reason, so the discards give their blood in exchange for the promise of being able to return to Earth. Of course the promise is broken, and instead of the return they get sent the last of the mutated people. Trust no one!
Wanted in surgery
How much power do we give machines? When is too much? Is it already too much? In this story a revolutionary invention means that doctors become superfluous. What happens to the trained doctors? They become mere helps. (Something like this of course isn't new, all the time certain professions die out). In this case one doctor takes the radical changes, mandated by law not too well. He despairs, feeling something is wrong. His frustrations surmount, but he is helpless until an incident which makes him realize that the machines (called "phymechs" - mechanical physicians) are not infallible: While attending to the physical wounds the phymech disregards the human factor. The result: The patient, although mechanically repaired, dies from psychological trauma of awakening during the operation. The doctor realizes that this big news that could change the general attitude towards the phymechs. He conceives the dark plan of purposely killing a patient during an assisted operation to blame the machine. In the end his Hippocratic oath and ethics stop him from killing the patient,a young girl. However, he is approached by a woman from the slums to heal her tetanus-infected husband. Human doctors are banned from practicing, but he does it anyway and gets arrested for it. However his boss, being suspicious over the doctors' general attitudes towards the machines had him followed and finds out, so the doctor goes on trial. He tells his story, and miraculously is acquitted while society rethinks the power they gave the machines. Probably the best story in this book, except for the happy ending.
Deeper than the Darkness
In this final story, also loosely set in the "Kyben universe", a homeless man is discovered that possess the unique ability of being able to start fires with his mind. He is a "psioid", and not alone. There are others, with formalized jobs, for example the telepaths that can read minds and are very handy for interrogation. Problem is, no one can penetrate this man's mind. Earth is, once more, at war with a different civilization. The military command try to force Gunnderson to make the enemies' sun go supernova, but he finds out that short of killing they cannot force him, as the powers of other psioids don't work on him. Gunnderson let a lonely life as a homeless person, and the military promise him hero status, recognition, if he wipes out the enemy civilization. Gunnderson however sees the moral implications and takes the hard route: He flees and becomes a wanderer amongst the stars. He preaches and plays melancholic, sad music, but lives with a good conscience.
February 5, 2024
Isaac Asimov assures me it's a rational universe, predicated on sanity and order. Yeah? Well, tell me about God. Tell me who He is, why He allows the foulest hyenas of our society to run amuck while decent men and women cower in terror behind Fox locks and Dictograph systems. Tell me about Him. Equate theology with the world in which we live, with William Calley and Kitty Genovese and the people who keep their kids out of school because the new textbooks dare to say Humans are clever descendants of the Ape. No? Having some trouble? Getting ready to write me a letter denouncing me as the Antichrist? "God in his infinite wisdom," you say? Faith, you urge me? I have faith... in people, not Gods.
-- Introduction to First Edition: "Spero Meliora: From the Vicinity of Alienation"
"I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain there can be no pleasure. Without sadness there can be happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned.
It is a gray and a lonely place in which we live, all of us, swinging between desperation and emptiness, and all that makes it worthwhile is caring, is beauty. But if there were no opposite for beauty, or for pleasure, it would all turn to dust."
-- "Paingod"
The rest of the pack materialized from the darkness. Dozens of them, circling warily now that one of their number lay in a trembling-wet garbage heap of its own innards.
Bright Eyes whistled Thomas to him with a soft sound. They stood together, facing the horde, and Bright Eyes called up a talent his race had not been forced to use in uncounted centuries.
The great white eyes glowed, deep and bubbling as cauldrons of lava, and a hollow moaning came from a place deep in Bright Eyes' throat. A sound of torment, a sound of fear, an evocation of gods that were dust before the Earth began to gather moisture to itself in the senseless cosmos, before the Moon had cooled, before the patterns of magnetism had settled the planets of the Solar System in their sockets.
Out of that sound, the basic fiber of emotion, like some great machine phasing toward top-point efficiency, Bright Eyes drew himself tight and unleashed the blast of pure power at the dogs.
Buried deep in his mind, the key to pure fear as a weapon was depressed, and in a blinding fan of sweeping brilliance, the emotion washed out toward the horde, a comber of undiluted, unbuffered terror. For the first time in centuries, that immense power was unleashed. Bright Eyes thought them terrified, and the air stank with fear.
The dogs, bulge-eyed and hysterical, fled in a wave of yipping, trembling, tuck-tailed quivering.
As if the night could no longer contain the immensity of it, the shimmering sound of terror bulged and grew, seeking release in perhaps another dimension, some higher threshold of audibility, and finding none -- it wisped away in darkness and was gone.
Bright Eyes stood trembling uncontrollably, every fiber of his body spasming. His pineal gland throbbed. An intracranial tumor -- whose presence in a human brain would have meant death -- absolutely imperative for Bright Eyes' coordinated thought processes, which had swollen to five times its size as he concentrated, till his left temple had bulged with the pressing growth of it... now shrank, subsided, sucked itself back down into the gray brain matter, the gliomas itself. And slowly, as the banked fires of his eyes softened once more, Bright Eyes came back to full possession of himself.
"It has been a very long time since that was needed," he said gently, and dwelt for a moment on the powers his race had possessed, powers long-since gone to forgetfulness.
Now that it was over, the giant rat settled to the ground, licking at its fur, at a slash in the flesh where one of the mad things had ripped and found meat.
Bright Eyes went to him. "They are the saddest creatures of all. They are alone."
-- "Bright Eyes"
-- Introduction to First Edition: "Spero Meliora: From the Vicinity of Alienation"
"I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain there can be no pleasure. Without sadness there can be happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned.
It is a gray and a lonely place in which we live, all of us, swinging between desperation and emptiness, and all that makes it worthwhile is caring, is beauty. But if there were no opposite for beauty, or for pleasure, it would all turn to dust."
-- "Paingod"
The rest of the pack materialized from the darkness. Dozens of them, circling warily now that one of their number lay in a trembling-wet garbage heap of its own innards.
Bright Eyes whistled Thomas to him with a soft sound. They stood together, facing the horde, and Bright Eyes called up a talent his race had not been forced to use in uncounted centuries.
The great white eyes glowed, deep and bubbling as cauldrons of lava, and a hollow moaning came from a place deep in Bright Eyes' throat. A sound of torment, a sound of fear, an evocation of gods that were dust before the Earth began to gather moisture to itself in the senseless cosmos, before the Moon had cooled, before the patterns of magnetism had settled the planets of the Solar System in their sockets.
Out of that sound, the basic fiber of emotion, like some great machine phasing toward top-point efficiency, Bright Eyes drew himself tight and unleashed the blast of pure power at the dogs.
Buried deep in his mind, the key to pure fear as a weapon was depressed, and in a blinding fan of sweeping brilliance, the emotion washed out toward the horde, a comber of undiluted, unbuffered terror. For the first time in centuries, that immense power was unleashed. Bright Eyes thought them terrified, and the air stank with fear.
The dogs, bulge-eyed and hysterical, fled in a wave of yipping, trembling, tuck-tailed quivering.
As if the night could no longer contain the immensity of it, the shimmering sound of terror bulged and grew, seeking release in perhaps another dimension, some higher threshold of audibility, and finding none -- it wisped away in darkness and was gone.
Bright Eyes stood trembling uncontrollably, every fiber of his body spasming. His pineal gland throbbed. An intracranial tumor -- whose presence in a human brain would have meant death -- absolutely imperative for Bright Eyes' coordinated thought processes, which had swollen to five times its size as he concentrated, till his left temple had bulged with the pressing growth of it... now shrank, subsided, sucked itself back down into the gray brain matter, the gliomas itself. And slowly, as the banked fires of his eyes softened once more, Bright Eyes came back to full possession of himself.
"It has been a very long time since that was needed," he said gently, and dwelt for a moment on the powers his race had possessed, powers long-since gone to forgetfulness.
Now that it was over, the giant rat settled to the ground, licking at its fur, at a slash in the flesh where one of the mad things had ripped and found meat.
Bright Eyes went to him. "They are the saddest creatures of all. They are alone."
-- "Bright Eyes"
July 8, 2024
I wasnt as bit a fan of this as I Have No Mouth collection. The theme of Pain and that we are responsible for our actions and inactions made most of the stories have a similar sci-fi horror bent.
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman
This story seems familiar, and the evil world creates from an exaggerated idea of running on time doesn't have any of those really interesting second order effects that elevates Sci fi. The idea that people are "turned off" before their time for being too late to things makes it sound like a double punishment and the Tom Bambodill like Harlequin whilst a good foil to this doesn't seem to do much. It's a bit on the nose about rebelling against a society that tries to control you too much.
The use of And So it Goes made me think a lot about Slaughterhouse 5, but I think this came first.
"Checkout time is 2pm, you got here late the job is gone, you're late and have been docked 20 minutes pay, oh God I have to run, and so it goes and so it goes and so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock until we find times not serving us but we're serving time."
The Crackpots
Having to be a little made to be creative is certainly interesting but again there's not a massive amount of interesting development. The world view being changed by the watcher doesn't amount to much when his whole outlook is constantly challenged in the story and it doesnt really make it a big reveal to be told one thing and then in a few pages find out that it's different
Sleeping Dogs
Yeah maybe attacking the weird relics for no reason on a planet is a bad call, especially if there's a universe where odd things exist outside the scope of human comprehension. Maybe scout then first?
Bright Eyes
The Discarded
Abuse of the vulnerable and downtrodden in society is the theme, with the Discarded being given the option to spite Earth for their banishment, never trust an earthman sounds like a good argument, but being told there's space for you now and can be rehabilitated is the type of promise that's been broken as soon as the dominant have the upper hand again.
Wanted in Surgery
I liked this one, about a doctor struggling to find meaning after machines are created that can do their work better. Having seen a patient in Surgery die due to a lack of care from the machine seems perfectly fine to appeal their usefulness without his later plan of killing an appendectomy patient. The conclusion that man and machine work together is a good moral for a lot of advances but one can see where machines start to edge out humans.
The machines doing surgery is "a bad break for us but it's good for the whole human race and they come first!"
Deeper Than the Darkness
I'm not sure how people go from lighting fires with their minds to making a sun go supernova, seems like an odd powerscale. The lead character finding morality before committing a genocide seems like an oversight on the side of the mind reading telepaths that send him out on his mission.
Choice notes
When they went to dredge missiipe swamps for cheney schwarma and goodmen they found 16 black bodies, and that the newspapers barely reported it as it was considered the proper way to get back at an "uppity n****r". Do I say that and hope that I've said something rational?
Politicians should say I'm not going to steal too much, and in the bargain I'll build better roads, and schools and give you a better life. I'm not doing this from compassion but because I do this you'll elect me again and I'll get to steal a little more. Never trust someone who calls it "these United States" they're just trying to confuse you with syntax.
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman
This story seems familiar, and the evil world creates from an exaggerated idea of running on time doesn't have any of those really interesting second order effects that elevates Sci fi. The idea that people are "turned off" before their time for being too late to things makes it sound like a double punishment and the Tom Bambodill like Harlequin whilst a good foil to this doesn't seem to do much. It's a bit on the nose about rebelling against a society that tries to control you too much.
The use of And So it Goes made me think a lot about Slaughterhouse 5, but I think this came first.
"Checkout time is 2pm, you got here late the job is gone, you're late and have been docked 20 minutes pay, oh God I have to run, and so it goes and so it goes and so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock until we find times not serving us but we're serving time."
The Crackpots
Having to be a little made to be creative is certainly interesting but again there's not a massive amount of interesting development. The world view being changed by the watcher doesn't amount to much when his whole outlook is constantly challenged in the story and it doesnt really make it a big reveal to be told one thing and then in a few pages find out that it's different
Sleeping Dogs
Yeah maybe attacking the weird relics for no reason on a planet is a bad call, especially if there's a universe where odd things exist outside the scope of human comprehension. Maybe scout then first?
Bright Eyes
The Discarded
Abuse of the vulnerable and downtrodden in society is the theme, with the Discarded being given the option to spite Earth for their banishment, never trust an earthman sounds like a good argument, but being told there's space for you now and can be rehabilitated is the type of promise that's been broken as soon as the dominant have the upper hand again.
Wanted in Surgery
I liked this one, about a doctor struggling to find meaning after machines are created that can do their work better. Having seen a patient in Surgery die due to a lack of care from the machine seems perfectly fine to appeal their usefulness without his later plan of killing an appendectomy patient. The conclusion that man and machine work together is a good moral for a lot of advances but one can see where machines start to edge out humans.
The machines doing surgery is "a bad break for us but it's good for the whole human race and they come first!"
Deeper Than the Darkness
I'm not sure how people go from lighting fires with their minds to making a sun go supernova, seems like an odd powerscale. The lead character finding morality before committing a genocide seems like an oversight on the side of the mind reading telepaths that send him out on his mission.
Choice notes
When they went to dredge missiipe swamps for cheney schwarma and goodmen they found 16 black bodies, and that the newspapers barely reported it as it was considered the proper way to get back at an "uppity n****r". Do I say that and hope that I've said something rational?
Politicians should say I'm not going to steal too much, and in the bargain I'll build better roads, and schools and give you a better life. I'm not doing this from compassion but because I do this you'll elect me again and I'll get to steal a little more. Never trust someone who calls it "these United States" they're just trying to confuse you with syntax.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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