The Deadly Streets

by Harlan Ellison

Overview

Terrifying tales of teenage gangs and life on the mean streets from the multiple award-winning author of A Boy and His Dog.
  Remember Charles Bronson stalking the streets of New York blowing holes in muggers in Death Wish? Remember Glenn Ford standing off the vicious juvenile delinquents in Blackboard Jungle? Well, it is more than fifty years and two different worlds from 1955 to now. And something the author of these stories knows that you are scared to admit is that reality and fantasy have flip‑flopped. They have switched places. The stories that scare you today are the ones about rapists and thugs, psychos who will carve you for a dollar and hypes who will bust your head to get fixed. Glenn Ford’s world was yesterday, and Bronson’s is today. And in the stalking midnight of this book, one of America’s top writers, Harlan Ellison, invades the shadows of both!

Customer Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497604803
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018), in a career spanning more than fifty years, wrote or edited one hundred fourteen books; more than seventeen hundred stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns; two dozen teleplays; and a dozen motion pictures. He won the Hugo Award eight and a half times (shared once); the Nebula Award three times; the Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association, five times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996); the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice; the Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award twice; and two Audie Awards (for the best in audio recordings); and he was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writers’ union. He was presented with the first Living Legend Award by the International Horror Critics at the 1995 World Horror Convention. Ellison is the only author in Hollywood ever to win the Writers Guild of America award for Outstanding Teleplay (solo work) four times, most recently for “Paladin of the Lost Hour,” his Twilight Zone episode that was Danny Kaye’s final role, in 1987. In 2006, Ellison was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Dreams with Sharp Teeth, the documentary chronicling his life and works, was released on DVD in May 2009. He passed away in 2018 at the age of eighty-four.
 

Table of Contents

Contents

New Introduction: AVOIDING DARK PLACES,
Introduction to First Edition: SOME SKETCHES OF THE DAMNED,
RAT HATER,
"I'LL BET YOU A DEATH",
WE TAKE CARE OF OUR DEAD,
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TONGUE,
JOHNNY SLICE'S STOOLIE,
JOY RIDE,
BUY ME THAT BLADE,
THE HIPPIE-SLAYER,
KID KILLER,
WITH A KNIFE IN HER HAND,
SOB STORY (written with Henry Slesar),
LOOK ME IN THE EYE, BOY!,
THE DEAD SHOT,
SHIP-SHAPE PAY-OFF (written with Robert Silverberg),
MADE IN HEAVEN,
STUDENTS OF THE ASSASSIN,

Editorial Reviews

This third reissue of Ellison’s classic 1958 collection about juvenile delinquents, city gang members, and those infected or affected by violence are still potent, even though switchblades and zip guns have been replaced by much deadlier weaponry in the hands of their present-day counterparts. In the 1975 reissue, Ellison added five additional stories of “street terror” to the original 11. In the introduction to the first edition (included in this volume), Ellison notes that 10 of the 11 stories are “based in verifiable fact. Truth incarnate.” That feeling of verisimilitude and immediacy runs through such tales as “With a Knife in Her Hand,” in which a tough girl tries to meet a challenge to her leadership of a male gang, and “I’ll Bet You a Death,” in which a gang member’s pride traps him in a deadly wager. While elements of these stories firmly date them in the past, Ellison’s prose remains satisfyingly sharp and his insights into the fears and longings that drive his characters are even sharper and more satisfying. (May)

Publishers Weekly