"The Deathbird" is a novelette by American writer Harlan Ellison. It won the 1974 Hugo Award for Best Novelette [1] and Locus Award for Best Short Story.
It has been included in the author's short story collection Deathbird Stories .
"The Deathbird" is a novelette by American writer Harlan Ellison. It won the 1974 Hugo Award for Best Novelette [1] and Locus Award for Best Short Story.
It has been included in the author's short story collection Deathbird Stories .
The story is formatted as a test of sorts, worth 3/4 of some final grade. The action is interrupted at points with test questions, some of which do not make sense. Millions of years ago, "The Mad One", also known as Ialdabaoth or God, took over the earth in a sort of cosmic lawsuit. The original creators left behind one last member of their race, Dira, to tell humans the truth about their god, but the dominant traditions throughout the ages denounce Dira as evil. Now, the world is coming to an end and Nathan Stack, the latest incarnation of a long line of humans going back to Lilith’s husband, is revived by Snake (aka Dira) after spending 250 thousand years in an underground crypt to make the journey to the mountain where God lives. He is the only human capable of confronting him and putting the Earth out of its misery through the summoning of what is referred to as the Deathbird. The story also contains a few side plots, presumably about Nathan Stack or previous reincarnations of him. These stories tell of people that have had to make difficult decisions, allowing loved ones to die. In one such story, his mother is partially paralyzed and suffering from cancer which will eventually, slowly and painfully, travel to her heart. She eventually convinces him to inject her with a lethal substance in a hypodermic needle, killing her and ending her pain. This situation is repeated at the end of the story, where Nathan Stack must "use the needle" to summon the Deathbird and end the pain of the planet. [2]
Harlan Jay Ellison was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise, his A Boy and His Dog cycle, and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.
Dangerous Visions is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by American writer Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. It was published in 1967 and contained 33 stories, none of which had been previously published.
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.
"From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet" is a collection by American writer Harlan Ellison, including 26 extremely short stories on abstract and basically unrelated topics, displaying various aspects of Ellison's preoccupations with morality, mythology, the trivia of history, and humor. He wrote the collection in three days in the window of a bookstore.
Deathbird Stories: A Pantheon of Modern Gods is a 1975 collection of short stories by American author Harlan Ellison, written over a period of ten years; the stories address the theme of modern-day "deities" that have replaced the older, more traditional ones. The collection, with its satirical, skeptical tone, is widely considered one of Ellison's best. The book includes a 1973 introduction and a stern caveat lector page advising the reader against enjoying the volume in one sitting. The title of the book comes from "The Deathbird", the nineteenth and last story in the collection. The collection includes three major award-winners, including "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs", which won the Edgar Award; "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W", which won the Hugo Award; and "The Deathbird", another Hugo Award winner. Early editions have illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon.
The Hugo Winners was a series of books which collected science fiction and fantasy stories that won a Hugo Award for Short Story, Novelette or Novella at the World Science Fiction Convention between 1955 and 1982. Each volume was edited by American writer Isaac Asimov, who wrote the introduction and a short essay about each author featured in the book. Through these essays, Asimov reveals personal anecdotes, which authors he's jealous of, and how other writers winning awards ahead of him made him angry. Additionally, he discusses his political beliefs, friendships, and his affinity for writers of "hard science fiction". The first two volumes were collected by Doubleday into a single book, which lacks a publishing date and ISBN.
"Paladin of the Lost Hour" is the second segment of the seventh episode of the first season of the first revival of the television series The Twilight Zone, adapted from a novelette by scriptwriter Harlan Ellison. The story follows the friendship between a Vietnam veteran and an old man entrusted with forestalling the end of the universe. The television episode starred Danny Kaye in one of his final screen appearances.
The 32nd World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Discon II, was held on 29 August–2 September 1974 at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., United States.
"The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" is a 1968 science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1969.
The Voice From the Edge is a series of audiobooks collecting short stories written and narrated by American author Harlan Ellison. The first two volumes were published by Fantastic Audio; they were republished by Blackstone Audio in 2011. The uploading of these audio books to a newsgroup on the internet led to a court case to decide the liability of a service provider according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The fourth volume was published by Audible.
The 1974 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the third volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in May 1974, followed by a hardcover edition issued in September of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art of Jack Gaughan was replaced by a new cover painting by Victor Valla. The paperback edition was reissued by DAW in December 1979 under the variant title Wollheim's World's Best SF: Series Three, this time with cover art by Vicente Segrelles. A British hardcover edition was published by The Elmfield Press in October 1975 under the variant title The World's Best SF Short Stories No. 1.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #3 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the third volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books in July 1974, and reissued in July 1976.
Clifford Donald Simak was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is associated with the pastoral science fiction subgenre.
"Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W" is a 1974 science fiction novelette by Harlan Ellison. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in October 1974, and subsequently republished in Ellison's 1975 collection of god-themed short fiction, Deathbird Stories, in the 1991 Byron Preiss-edited anthology The Ultimate Werewolf, and in Ellison's 2006 anthology The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective.
Nebula Award Stories 9 is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by Kate Wilhelm. It was first published in the United Kingdom in hardcover by Gollancz in November 1974. The first American edition was published by Harper & Row in January 1975. Paperback editions followed from Corgi Books in the U.K. in November 1976, and Bantam Books in the U.S. in July 1978. The American editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories Nine. The book has also been published in German.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2007 is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by Mike Resnick. It was first published in trade paperback by Roc/New American Library in March 2007.
"The Function of Dream Sleep" is a fantasy short story by American writer Harlan Ellison, first published in his 1988 anthology Angry Candy. Ellison stated that it was inspired by an actual dream.
"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" is a science fiction short story by American writer Vonda N. McIntyre. First published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in October 1973, it was anthologized multiple times, and also formed the first chapter of McIntyre's 1978 novel Dreamsnake. Set after a nuclear holocaust, "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" tells of Snake, a healer who uses the venom of three genetically engineered snakes to heal, and follows her effort to heal a nomad boy of a tumor. The story won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1974. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award in the same category, and for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction. Scholar Anne Hudson Jones called it a powerful story, and stated that its themes were "mythic and universal".
"Omphalos" is a science fantasy short story by American author Ted Chiang. It is named after the Omphalos hypothesis and a 1857 book by English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. It was first published in Chiang's 2019 collection, Exhalation: Stories.
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