Ellison Wonderland

By: Harlan Ellison, Josh Olson - afterword

Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir, Richard Gilliland, Alex Hyde-White, Jim Meskimen, Arthur Morey, full cast

Originally published in 1962 and updated in later decades with a new introduction, Ellison Wonderland contains 16 masterful stories from the author's early career.

This collection shows a vibrant young writer with a wide-ranging imagination, ferocious creative energy, devastating wit, and an eye for the wonderful and terrifying and tragic. Among the gems are "All the Sounds of Fear", "The Sky Is Burning", "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman", and "In Lonely Lands". Though they stand tall on their own merits, they also point the way to the sublime stories that followed soon after and continue to come even now, more than 50 years later.

©1962, 1974, 1990, 2002 Harlan Ellison (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc.

The first Ellison I've read... did not disappoint!

Smooth, smart, engrossing speculative fiction. I can't wait to read more by him. Fantastic narration. Lots of grins. Highly recommend. 5 stars!!!

Not Stories: self-aggrandizing Essays about himself

This book is largely a series of very long, self-aggrandizing and rambling statements/essays from Harlan - bit stories. He talks a LOT about how he doesn’t drop names or tell stories and then proceeds to drop every name of every famous person he ever met or with whom he even corresponded. It’s sometimes funny. But we - the readers - really only needed to hear it all once.

He will tell you that he infuriated a good friend by refusing to tell which famous person invited him to a party - only to then talk all about his good friend Kurt Vonnegut or how he met whitey bulger, the famous mobster.

But to be fair - he does tell you that he is a professional liar. I don’t know what to make of it.

The best part of this book was Ellison’s diatribe.

It is supposed to be an introduction but it takes
up nearly half the book. Just listening to him unleash his unrestrained stream of consciousness, exposing so many people who had done the dirty on him 40, 50, 60 years ago, with unrestrained wit & vitriol, is hysterically funny and better than the rest of the book.

As Josh Olson says, the stories are early, formative, light & fluffy short stories, written by a young man.
The are like listening to “She Loves You”, when you know “Sgt. Pepper’s” is in the future.

Seriously though, this whole book is worth buying, just for the glimpse into what Harlan would have been like, if he was your friend and you were sitting around having drinks while he told anecdotes about his life.
Such an insight.

Good listen...it's just that...

...I just can't stand the sound of Scott Brick. It must be a regional accent or the inflection. Scott can make a good book terrible. Just my viewpoint.

Harlan was truly one of a kind.

Great stories, but my favorite part is Harlan’s 45,000 word introduction, read by the author. It’s worth the price of admission alone.

Your Audio Guide to Ellison Wonderland

For me any new Harlan Ellison audiobook is a cause for celebration. If you’re a fan, this 2015 edition of Ellison Wonderland includes a lengthy new introduction and a new story within the introduction section.

If you haven’t read Ellison before these are earlier works and you may first want to check out his Edge in My Voice collections, which include many of his best stories. He also reads/performs many of the stories in the collection, which I prefer. The other performers are also very good.

Ellison Wonderland is fun and the new material makes it worth your while if you’ve previously read the book.

Here is a breakdown of the contents:
• GO THOU AND DO LIKEWISE: AN APPRECIATION OF HARLAN ELLISON by J. Michael Straczynski
• Author’s Introduction: THE MAN ON THE MUSHROOM (1974/1984)
• Author’s new Introduction: DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU: THE LAST DANGEROUS INTRODUCTION TO ELLISON WONDERLAND (2013)
• COMMUTER’S PROBLEM
• DO-IT-YOURSELF (Written in collaboration with Joe L. Hensley)
• THE SILVER CORRIDOR
• ALL THE SOUNDS OF FEAR
• GNOMEBODY
• THE SKY IS BURNING
• MEALTIME
• THE VERY LAST DAY OF A GOOD WOMAN
• BATTLEFIELD
• DEAL FROM THE BOTTOM
• THE WIND BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS
• ARE YOU LISTENING? (AKA, THE FORCES THAT CRUSH)
• NOTHING FOR MY NOON MEAL
• HADJ
• RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY
• IN LONELY LANDS
• BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARDS
• AFTERWORD by Josh Olson

that introductions one hell of a rant Harlan...

but introduction was one hell of a rat Harlan! Come get me mofo.... Sigh... Damn it... not even that would raise him from the dead. I miss you cranky old man

Crotchety Ole Harlan Ellison!

More than half of this version of this book was filled with added narratives, new musings, and hours of narration by Harlan Ellison. I could not ask for more fantastic addition into an excellent book than this. Can I please pay triple for the book in this version?

A Man Who Asked for Woke, but Would Get Cancelled

They eat their own. Ellison wasted too much time flinging hatred in his essays and public feuds and other products of his egotism. He was a great writer of dark fiction. His spaces weren't safe. So maybe he was on the wrong team, because the liberal offspring of guys like Unca Harl are willing weaklings with a terrifying hive mind ego. It all went sour, and Ellison would probably kowtow and backslide in order to remain in good standing with the Antifa fascists. This collection is an interesting and rather excruciating deep dive into one man's abusive love affair with himself. He helped create a world that would not have him. And them's facts...kiddo.

What a great listen, Ellison never disappoints

The intro alone is worth the price of the book. The stories are fantastic the performances are perfect. All this collection of short stories make me want much more stuff from Harlan Ellison (tm)