Slippage

Slippage, Harlan Ellison, Mark Ziesing Books, 1997

This is a group of new speculative, or imaginative, fiction stories from Harlan Ellison. Winner of many fiction awards, including lifetime achievement awards from The World Fantasy and World Horror Conventions, and several science fiction Hugo and Nebula awards, Ellison has put together some stories that are not specifically science fiction, fantasy, or horror stories, but a combination of all three, like Twilight Zone stories.

Included are two teleplays, including one that was shown on the '80s Twilight Zone. The other one, which almost made it to TV, is about a male social worker who taunts a couple of inner city children with tales of an anti-Santa Claus named Nackles who will take children away forever. The social worker then gets to meet Nackles in person.

Among the other stories in this book are the story of an ex-Nazi war criminal who is caught alone in a forest and punished, not by a Jew, but by a dryad, a member of the forest people. A black telepath is sent to a southern maximum-security prison to see if a convicted mass murderer is really guilty. A miniature dragon falls in love with its owner; a computer feeds on human blood.

If the $75.00 price tag on this limited edition is a little steep, Houghton Mifflin has published a less expensive edition of this Must Purchase of a book, which I really loved. The stories are fascinating and well done from beginning to end, with that extra little bit of weird. This is one of those books for which the description "first-rate" isn't good enough.