Harlan Ellison. Earthman, Go Home! (1962) & The Time of the Eye (1974)

     Harlan Ellison. Earthman, Go Home! (1962) A collection Ellison’s early stories, and vintage SF it is. It even has author’s notes introducing each story, a standard feature of anthologies of the time. Ellison has a sharp intelligence and a fertile imagination, and no mean skill in pacing his stories, These betray their pulp origins, he did make a living as a writer, after all, and vary in quality. Many are little more than shaggy dog stories, a genre that was popular in the more hip SF circles of the 1950s and 60s. Humans are either the butt of the joke, or the jokesters. Fun to read, but not particularly memorable, and the claims of significant themes notwithstanding, essentially pleasant fluff. ** (2004)
     Harlan Ellison. The Time of the Eye (1974) Another Ellison collection, some of them recycled from earlier ones. The tone of this one is darker, and Ellison’s introduction expresses if anything more grandiose claims of thematic relevance, but at bottom these are horror stories, and quite well done, too. ** (2004)