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Dark Angels: The Complete Works of Edward Bryant Volume Two
638 pages, Paperback
Published August 3, 2025
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About the author
Edward Bryant
228 books32 followersEdward Winslow Bryant, Jr. was born August 27, 1945 in White Plains NY and was raised on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. He attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned a Master’s in English in 1968 and ’69. He went to the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 1968. In 1972 he moved to Denver CO, where he founded the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop. He helped found and run many other workshops and classes as well, including the Colorado Springs Writers Workshop.
Bryant was an accomplished science-fiction writer, mostly of short stories. He began publishing SF work with “They Come Only in Dreams” and “Sending the Very Best”, both in January 1970. For the next two decades he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies, and though his fictional output slowed in the ’90s, he was still active as a critic. He was a familiar figure at conventions, especially in Colorado fandom. He was a frequent guest at the World Horror Convention, and chaired the 2000 convention in Denver.
With Harlan Ellison he wrote Phoenix without Ashes (1978), and solo short novel Fetish appeared in 1991. He also edited 2076: The American Tricentennial (1977), and was an editor for Wormhole Books. He wrote screenplays and occasionally appeared in films.
--excerpted from Locus Publications
Bryant was an accomplished science-fiction writer, mostly of short stories. He began publishing SF work with “They Come Only in Dreams” and “Sending the Very Best”, both in January 1970. For the next two decades he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies, and though his fictional output slowed in the ’90s, he was still active as a critic. He was a familiar figure at conventions, especially in Colorado fandom. He was a frequent guest at the World Horror Convention, and chaired the 2000 convention in Denver.
With Harlan Ellison he wrote Phoenix without Ashes (1978), and solo short novel Fetish appeared in 1991. He also edited 2076: The American Tricentennial (1977), and was an editor for Wormhole Books. He wrote screenplays and occasionally appeared in films.
--excerpted from Locus Publications
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 5, 2025
Full disclosure: Science Fiction/Horror writer Edward Bryant was my friend for 30+ years. Ed was also a first-rate writer, whose best work put compelling, fully-realized characters in fantastic situations, obviously in service of “plot,” but also to often explore the uplifting and degraded aspects of the character’s – and the reader’s – humanity. No, Ed wasn’t out to preach or teach; as some once said, “Slip a little DEEP STUFF in unnoticed, amid all the sex and violence.”
Although Ed won two Nebula Awards, Science Fiction’s highest honor, before his work shifted toward horror, his only novel (PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES) was an adaptation of a Harlan Ellison screenplay. Like Ellison, Ed tilled the more demanding, less fame ‘n’ fiscally rewarding field of the short story, where every word counts. The recent publication of the first two volumes in a wide-ranging retrospective gives a new audience the chance to discover what the literary fuss over Bryant was all about.
DARK ANGELS is a “horror” collection, so, sure, a certain amount of gore get splattered (e.g. “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned,” an all-time zombie creep-out, that Ed admits in the introduction, “It bothered me that I could even write this.”), but many of the chillers are more subtle; Ed worked with a scalpel more often then a chainsaw.
The titular “Dark Angel” (one of five stories featuring Angela Black, a modern witch/private eye), finds our heroine delivering truly horrific if entirely appropriate justice, without a single drop of blood appearing “on screen.”
The 600+ page collection features an intro by Dan Simmons and several black humored and insightful essays by Bryant, written as late as 2014 (he died in 2017). The stories are mostly highlights, but I’ll briefly mention the very brief “Doing Colfax,” a terrifying take on the banality of serial killer evil; the unhappy wife bad-ass Della Myers of “While She Was Out,” which was made into TWO movies (one starring Kim Basinger); the watchful, caretaker ghost skipping through time in “Human Remains”…
And, oh yeah! The Joker and Batman tangle in “Dying is Easy. Comedy is Hard.”
I miss my friend Ed. But his work still lives to haunt our dreams, pick at scabs on the soul and dare to tell us what lurks beneath.
Although Ed won two Nebula Awards, Science Fiction’s highest honor, before his work shifted toward horror, his only novel (PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES) was an adaptation of a Harlan Ellison screenplay. Like Ellison, Ed tilled the more demanding, less fame ‘n’ fiscally rewarding field of the short story, where every word counts. The recent publication of the first two volumes in a wide-ranging retrospective gives a new audience the chance to discover what the literary fuss over Bryant was all about.
DARK ANGELS is a “horror” collection, so, sure, a certain amount of gore get splattered (e.g. “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned,” an all-time zombie creep-out, that Ed admits in the introduction, “It bothered me that I could even write this.”), but many of the chillers are more subtle; Ed worked with a scalpel more often then a chainsaw.
The titular “Dark Angel” (one of five stories featuring Angela Black, a modern witch/private eye), finds our heroine delivering truly horrific if entirely appropriate justice, without a single drop of blood appearing “on screen.”
The 600+ page collection features an intro by Dan Simmons and several black humored and insightful essays by Bryant, written as late as 2014 (he died in 2017). The stories are mostly highlights, but I’ll briefly mention the very brief “Doing Colfax,” a terrifying take on the banality of serial killer evil; the unhappy wife bad-ass Della Myers of “While She Was Out,” which was made into TWO movies (one starring Kim Basinger); the watchful, caretaker ghost skipping through time in “Human Remains”…
And, oh yeah! The Joker and Batman tangle in “Dying is Easy. Comedy is Hard.”
I miss my friend Ed. But his work still lives to haunt our dreams, pick at scabs on the soul and dare to tell us what lurks beneath.
October 20, 2025
A dark horror collection of Edward Bryant. Exceptional in every way and quite a bit creepy and haunting and somewhat bothersome , and why else would you enjoy horror stories. Loved it!!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews