Publishers Weekly announced on January 18 that Union Square & Co, a division of Barnes and Noble won the rights to Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits at auction. Publication date will be Spring 2024 edited by J. Michael Straczynski with a foreword by Neil Gaiman and an introduction by Michael Chabon.
The book contains 32 of Harlan’s best known and most iconic award-winning stories, including “Repent Harlequin, Said the TickTockMan”, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, “Mefisto in Onyx”, “Deathbird”, “Jeffty is Five” and many others.
Straczynski told Facebook readers, “They will be releasing the book in their Classics category, which is designated for works of significant literary merit, as Harlan’s work deserves. Since taking over the Harlan and Susan Ellison Estate (and now the nonprofit Foundation) my task has been to get Harlan’s work back into bookstores, libraries, universities and other sites where new readers can discover his books. This is a huge step in bringing his stories to a new generation of fans.”
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I’ll be buying this even if its contents resemble Top of The Volcano, as I suspect it will.
It wouldn’t be Harlan if it didn’t erupt occasionally.
I look forward to buying a copy, as I’m still determining where my copies of the two paperbacks I got when I discovered him back in the 70s are. Mark claims this will be the last time I move, but much of my stuff is still in the house I lived in two moves ago.
@Ellen, which Ellisons are you looking for?
Yeah, I probably will get a copy, even if I have most of the stories in one form or another
I apologize in advance for bringing up an old wound, but were the rights to the The Last Dangerous Visions stories ever formally reverted to the authors?
To Madame Hardy:
In the initial announcement, Straczynski stated his intention to market the book to publishers in March/April 2021. He reported sending the finished manuscript to an agent in a post on September 26, 2021,[7] with an updated word count of 112,000.[8] On July 10, 2022, Straczynski announced on Twitter that The Last Dangerous Visions will be published on September 1, 2024 by Blackstone Publishers.[9]
I also look forward to new editions of Ellison’s work, even though I have a pretty decent collection.
I’m not sure if it somehow got left off in their website’s redesign, or if something has changed regarding the release plans, but the Blackstone Publishing page mentioning a September 2024 release of The Last Dangerous Visions is no longer where it used to be on the site, and I can find no mention of the book anywhere else on their current website.
Has anyone heard anything further about this since the last story here in July, or found any current “coming soon” announcement for it either on Blackstone’s or any other publisher’s site?
Jeffty is Five! (a favorite)
Robert Reynolds: Indeed; The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison has 23 pieces, including all five named here.
I suppose that to get the count to 32 (and remain within a decent thickness), they might throw out some novellas to make room for really short stories. Yet, “Mefisto in Onyx” was retained…
Also, only in December (as reported at file770.com/straczynski-news-roundup-about-ellison-foundation/ – sorry, File’s spamfilter doesn’t like working links even to itself) JMS claimed that the book was just auctioned with SEVENTEEN stories. This must be the fastest-progressing TLDVitis case I’ve ever seen…