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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Very Best of Harlan..., July 3 2004
Troublemakers is the best introduction to the stories of Harlan Ellison in print. Out of the roughly 2,000 stories he has written, some of his greatest are here, including Soldier, Jeffty is Five, and "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. Each story comes with a little preface by the author, wherein he loosely ties them all together with the theme of "troublemaking." (In actuality, this is a "greatest hits" collection.) However, this by no means contains ALL of his greatest hits. For instance, The Whimper of Whipped Dogs is absent, as is Demon with a Glass Hand. For something along those lines you'd need to purchase The Essential Ellison - and only Harlan could get away with calling a book the size of the Norton Anthology "essential." However, to begin a study of his work, this is the place to start.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
The thrill is gone., Feb 3 2004
By A Customer
Several years ago, Harlan Ellison was vital, Harlan Ellison was angry, Harlan Ellison was a force of chaos that upset the applecart any chance he got. Time hasn't been kind either to him or to the stories collected herein. He's become the unapologetic, misanthropic crank who stands in the middle of the square railing at all the fools around him and ultimately is tiresome to read or listen to. If you're in your late teens or early twenties, this and his other collections will shake you up...but probably only for one read-through. Harlan, get a life. Given an extra star for nostalgia's sake.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Angry Man Makes Trouble, Aug 20 2002
I find it somewhat difficult to sum up an entire book of short stories in a single review. Many of the stories in TROUBLEMAKERS are magical, thought-provoking and wonderful. But on the other hand, others in the collection simply bored me, and left me impatient for the next story to begin. The book as a whole I found to be mostly hit and miss, with some real standouts that do manage to make the collection a welcome one.Like a belligerent Rod Serling with a chip on his shoulder, Harlan Ellison angrily provides an introduction to each of his stories (sometimes being more entertaining in his factual summary than in the work of fiction itself) and describes some of the themes that he was attempting to inject into the particular story. The overall hook of this collection is, as you may have guessed from the title, troublemakers and the, er, trouble that they make. Included are stories ranging from 1956 up through the year of publication (2001), many of which are products of their era, yet still manage to have a timeless feel to them. For example, the utterly sixties "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman" is dripping with the feeling and sensibilities of that decade, but can be read today in the 21st century without losing any of its original passion. The stories here make a good suite of tales, though you'll have to squint your eyes a bit to squeeze some of them under the troublemaking heading. As I mentioned, some of the stories here are absolutely amazing. When Ellison's talents are clicking he can create stories that boggle the imagination and rank up with the best of Ray Bradbury, another master of the fantastical short story. Yet there are several selections here that I found to be a bit dreary and inconsequential. I wondered briefly if I had missed something, but after skimming what I had just read I came to the conclusion that I had, indeed, "got" the story, I just hadn't cared for it. The worst of this collection tend to be uninteresting and contain foreseeable conclusions, sharply clashing with the imaginative heights of the best. It's a pity that the collection is a bit haphazard because the really good stories definitely make this collection worth a purchase. This was the first collection of Ellison's short stories that I've read and I certainly plan on reading more in the future. Although I didn't care for several of the stories in this particular anthology, I recognized a quality that I liked. TROUBLEMAKERS features stories that can be raw in places, have a sense of faint futility and aren't assured of a happy ending. Many of them were genuinely unpredictable (and by unpredictable, I mean that I honestly didn't see the ending coming rather than guessing it but assuming that the author wouldn't go there) and occasionally unsettling. The best stories in TROUBLEMAKERS did what any good anthology should do -- make me want to read more by this author.
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