Master essayist, gadfly, literary myth-figure and viewer of dark portent, Harlan Ellison has been, for the greater part of his life, a burr under the saddle of Complacency. His two books of TV criticism, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat, are taught in more than 200 universities and colleges. In this, his former assistant and confidante, Marty Clark, has culled from hundreds of rare and unreprinted works twenty wide-ranging essays that demonstrate why the monstre sacre of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen award of P.E.N. International for his journalistic frays in 1982.

Five years in the making, the Edgeworks Abbey Archive represents Harlan Ellison's last word on his written legacy. Researched and edited by Ellison's long-time associate, Jason Davis, under the supervision of Harlan and Susan Ellison, this collection assembles the preferred texts of each story and essay along with previously uncollected and unpublished material to create the definitive edition.HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD collects the hard-boiled fiction Ellison wrote for the mystery/suspense digests of the 1950s, along with a few later contributions to the genre from the men's magazines of the 1960s. In these pages, you will find Ellison's only recurring character, insurance investigator-turned-fixer Jerry Killian, as well as the diminutive private dick Big John Novak, a character intended to continue, but only appearing in one suspenseful outing. His aborted second appearance, "In Small Packages," makes its debut herein, alongside a pair of first drafts that showcase the rapid development of Ellison's craft across his first years as a professional writer-a time when pros were paid a penny a word.

This follow-up to Ellison's 1989 Stoker Award-winning book of film (and by extension, cultural) criticism picks up precisely where its predecessor left off: with the 35th installment-dated July 1989-of his column in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, and continues through his 50th entry, written for this volume in September 2014. But wait, there's more: buy now, and at no extra cost, you'll get three pieces of twenty-first century film criticism bringing the collection bang -up-to-date, as well as a long-lost assessment of PSYCHO that predates even the 1965 entries in HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING; if that's not value for money, we don't know what is. Did I mention the stunning Overton Loyd cover? The Harlan Ellison's Watching columns included are: From 1989: Installment 35: In Which the Phantasmagorical Pales Before the Joys of the Mimetic Installment 36: In Which, Darkly and Deliciously, We Travel From Metropolis to Metropolis, Two Different Cities, Both Ominous Installment 37: In Which Not Only is No Answer Given, But No One Seems to Know the Question to Ask Installment 38: In Which, Though Manipulated, We Acknowledge That Which All Men Seek From 1990: Installment 39: In Which We Hum a Merry Tune While Waiting for New Horrors, New Horrors Installment 40: In Which We Scrutinize the Sedulousness to Their Hippocratic Oath of Troglodytic, Blue, Alien Proctologists Installment 41: In Which an Extremely Nervous Fool with His Credentials Taped to His Forehead Tacks Trepidatiously Between Scylla and Charybdis Knowing that Angels and Wise Men Would Fear Even to Dog-Paddle This Route Installment 42: In Which It Waddles Like a Duck, Sheds Water Like a Duck, and Goes Steady With Ducks, But Turns Out to be a Tortoise Installment 43: In Which We Lament, "There Goes the Neighborhood " Installment 44: In Which the Good Ship Coat-Tail-Ride Sinks, Abandoning Hundreds in Treacherous Waters From 1991: Installment 45: In Which Tempus Fidgets, Fugits, and Inevitably Omnia Revelats Installment 46: In Which We Bend So Far Over Backwards To Be Unbiased That You Can See The Nose Hairs Quiver With Righteousness Installment 47: In Which Artful Vamping Saves the Publisher $94.98 From 1994: Installment 48: In Which the Wee Child's Icons are Demeaned From 1995: Installment 49: In Which the Old Man of the Sea Bites the Head off Yet Another Chicken From 2014: Installment 50: In Which the Playroom of the Prodigal Gives One Last Gasp Pre-dating Ellison's column in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ENDLESSLY WATCHING collects a review of PSYCHO from a 1960 fanzine, 1974's "Total Impact: THE TERMINAL MAN," and Ellison's 1966 treatise on terror: "3 Faces of Fear," making its debut in a non-fiction Ellison collection. Bridging the nearly two decades between Watching columns are: 2007's "I Saw GHOST RIDER Today at the Galleria," and 2013's review of 12 YEARS A SLAVE and "Death to All Hollywood Award Shows " As an added bonus, we've exhumed two unpublished reviews...or, rather, one unpublished review of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA and an unpublished refusal to review HONEY, I BLEW UP THE BABY.

Incomparable

Ace Double Book, cover code D-413. One side of this 1960 paperback includes an original short novel, “The Man With Nine Lives.” A pulpy revenge fantasy, its shifting narrative focus and stylistic variations still reveal an early sophistication. The reverse title is a collection of stories including an introduction by the author and these tales: Run for the Stars (1957); Back to the Drawing Boards (1958); Life Hutch (1956); The Sky Is Burning (1958); Final Trophy (1957); Blind Lightning (1956). While long on macho angst and short on narrative or character depth, the themes that form the basis of so much of his later work -- alienation, violence and justice -- are already apparent.