A review by tregina
Dangerous Visions by Harlan Ellison
4.0
I've read several of these stories before, in other venues and other collections, but I've never read the entire book which is something I always meant to do. So this isn't about the individual stories—several of which are excellent—but about the book as a unit and as a product of its time. 1967 is nearly fifty years ago now.
It's easy these days to see science fiction authors as part of a community—it's a visible thing online and very much a part of the culture. It was always a part of the culture, but once much less visible outside of the inner circles. The introductions to these stories, each of them extensive, was the first time I, as a reader who wasn't born when the book was published and who's often felt alienated by classic science fiction, really felt the existence of that community and that network of writers, from the writers at the beginning of their careers (several of whom are now luminaries in the field) to those who were already established both in science fiction and in the mainstream.
This book is a remarkable accomplishment. It's not immune to the problems that usually make me shy away from classic science fiction— the sexism, the racism, the homophobia (particularly the homophobia in this case, which hit me like a slap in the face more than once—but it digs deep into some of those issues and pushes the envelope, and it's the first time I've read something from that era and saw, or began to see, just how we got from where we were then to where we are now.
It's easy these days to see science fiction authors as part of a community—it's a visible thing online and very much a part of the culture. It was always a part of the culture, but once much less visible outside of the inner circles. The introductions to these stories, each of them extensive, was the first time I, as a reader who wasn't born when the book was published and who's often felt alienated by classic science fiction, really felt the existence of that community and that network of writers, from the writers at the beginning of their careers (several of whom are now luminaries in the field) to those who were already established both in science fiction and in the mainstream.
This book is a remarkable accomplishment. It's not immune to the problems that usually make me shy away from classic science fiction— the sexism, the racism, the homophobia (particularly the homophobia in this case, which hit me like a slap in the face more than once—but it digs deep into some of those issues and pushes the envelope, and it's the first time I've read something from that era and saw, or began to see, just how we got from where we were then to where we are now.