Book Description

“One of the great . . . American short-story writers” exposes the darkness of the human heart in these speculative tales of terror and tragedy (George R. R. Martin). A five-year-old boy never ages, living as an immortal in a past that no longer exists while the world encroaches upon his innocence, in the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning “Jeffty Is Five.” An alien attack leaves Earth on the brink of Armageddon, as humans find themselves unable to resist the sexual allure of their invaders in “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?” In the Nebula Award–nominated “Shatterday” (subsequently adapted into the pilot episode of the second Twilight Zone series), a man fights for his life against a relentless enemy who knows his darkest secrets—his own doppelganger. In these and other thought-provoking stories, legendary author Harlan Ellison dissects the primal fears and inherent frailties common to all people and gives voice to the thoughts and feelings human beings bury deep within their souls. Unflinching and unapologetic, Ellison depicts men and women in all their ugliness and beauty, and humanity in all its fury and glory. Stories include “Introduction: Mortal Dreads,” “Jeffty Is Five,” “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?,” “Flop Sweat,” “Would You Do it For a Penny?” (written in collaboration with Haskell Barkin), “The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge,” “Shoppe Keeper,” “All the Lies That Are My Life,” “Django,” “Count the Clock That Tells the Time,” “In the Fourth Year of the War,” “Alive and Well on a Friendless Voyage,” “All the Birds Come Home to Roost,” “Opium,” “The Other Eye of Polyphemus,” “The Executioner of the Malformed Children,” and “Shatterday.”