Kevin's Watch

Strange Dreams
(1993)
An anthology of stories edited by
Stephen Donaldson




Contains stories by

Greg Bear, Michael Bishop, Herb Boehm, Jorge Luis Borges, Edward Bryant, Orson Scott Card, Daphne Castell, C J Cherryh, Harlan Ellison, John M Ford, M John Harrison, Harvey Jacobs, Franz Kafka, John Kessel, Garry Kilworth, Rudyard Kipling, Nancy Kress, R A Lafferty, Patricia A McKillip, Robin McKinley, Edgar Pangborn, Rachel Pollack, Lucius Shepard, Theodore Sturgeon, Somtow Sucharitkul, Sheri S Tepper, Jack Vance, Walter Jon Williams

Hmm, never seen that before, and I love anthologies. Can't stand Ellison, though.

Cool! Pretty decent line-up!

Why don't you like Ellison? I dig him, in weird ways--Interesting that he has included Borges after we discovered TC reading the same author at the beginning of The Illearth War. There's at least three Nebula Award winners and Williams and Shepard are outstanding! Vance may be the best SF author to ever come out of New Mexico (but Williams and SRD are giving him a serious run for his money) Sturgeon is great too--I need to hit the used book stores again and find this. This appears to be the only anthology SRD ever edited. He also includes McKillip to whom the dedicated The One Tree...

Of that list, my favorite are probably Greg Bear, Kipling, and McKinley.

I'm reading an awesome anthology now called The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction edited by Mike Ashley. Mostly excellent stuff, some of it dating to the turn of the century. Dick, Hamilton, Swanwick, et al.

Yup...Read it. It was probably about 10 years ago when it first came out and to be honest I don't remember any of the stories being particularly spectacular only for the fact that I recall very little of them now.

You've never read Shepard!? Syl you don't know what you're missing! Read Green Eyes asap! That's a direct order gob!

I think Ellison is the one who told the story of the guy who climbed that fabled mountain in the Himalayas to find the Wise Old Man. He finally found him, and asked, "What's the meaning of life?"

The WOM looked out over the world, and said, "You know, there's a lot of bastards out there."

Strange Dreams...sounds like a cross between Cheech and Chong and the McKenzie Brothers.

Who are the McKenzie Brothers? Are they the Canadian "Good day, eh?" guys in Strange Brew? You hoser!

Ellison also wrote a story about a boy with dust instead of eyes and still with the ability to see.

Havent read it. Its OOP and kind of difficult to find but you can certainly find one at abebooks.com

Strange Dreams was the collection that got me turned on to Ellison. When he's on, there's no one better. When he's off, bleh (like another of my favorite writers, Jonathan Carroll).

Ellison is now a cranky old nutsack with his internet piracy crusade and his other rants. Oh, but what beautiful rants.

I think I must only catch Ellison when he's off... which must be every time (and it's quite frequent) when he's in F&SF.

It has been a couple of years since I read Strange Dreams but I remember a couple of memorable stories from it. I didn't like all the stories in the collection, but there were some great and original stories.

I agree that Ellison's quality is VERY erratic. My reactions for his works have ranged from "work of genius" to "stupid blather". The short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is my favorite.

bump

I haven't read Strange Dreams; I remember gazing at it longingly several times in bookstores when it was a new publication, and coming to the conclusion that it was a temptation against economy. Every single time I have exercised that species of putative moral courage (passing up a book I really want) it has been a mistake. I'll have to see if the library, or failing that, Amazon, has it.

I'm a major Ellison fan. Though I have a few times encountered an Ellison story that didn't do much for me, that has been very much the exception rather than the rule.

My all-time favorite Ellison stories are probably "Paladin of the Lost Hour," "Count The Clock That Tells the Time," "Adrift off the Islets of Langerhans," and "All the Lies That Are My Life." Favorite is a somewhat misleading term for the last-named; it's one that I keep going back to, but that either constitutes or makes necessary a caamora each reading.

It took me months to find it. I agree, it was a mistake not to buy it right away, economy or no.

I'm writing a dissection, but will be be back with a more relevant post later.

Mods, this thread belongs in the RS/Other Writings forum. Could someone transfer it over? Thank you much.

Hunter D wrote:Strange Dreams...sounds like a cross between Cheech and Chong and the McKenzie Brothers.

LMBO

Danlo wrote:Who are the McKenzie Brothers? Are they the Canadian "Good day, eh?" guys in Strange Brew? You hoser!

lol, since no one ever actually answered...yes *grin*...we're not all that nuts...usually (I'm Canadian....eh?)

Nerdanel wrote:It has been a couple of years since I read Strange Dreams but I remember a couple of memorable stories from it. I didn't like all the stories in the collection, but there were some great and original stories.

In addition, Brinn and Ringthane read it. That makes four of us, among all the people of the Watch. Is that it??

I read it from the library while I was waiting for Powell's to track down a copy for me.

So to those who have read it, do you have a favorite story you can describe? (It would be tough to remember the titles after all this time.)

My favorite part was SRD's Intro, but two stories were memorable for me. Far and away my favorite was the one about stage actors in historical dramas, who had their realism enhanced by referencing past life memories of the characters they were portraying. The play in question was about Joan of Arc, and they found an actress who actually was Joan in her past life. Such turmoil. The aging star, who was put out to pasture when they found the real ex-Joan, put on a private performance that still gives me goose bumps to this day. The author was --

OMG!! Nancy Kress! I have her PROBABILITY MOON and PROBABILITY SPACE, and never made the connection! She won the Campbell, the Hugo, and the Nebula! OMG!! Now I have to read the PROBABILITY trilogy.