Shatterday

Mercurial, belligerent, passionately in love with language and wild ideas, Harlan Ellison has, for half a century, steadily gathered to himself and his thirty-seven books an undeniably fanatical readership. Winner of more awards for imaginative literature than any other living writer, he is the only scenarist ever to win the Writers Guild of America award three times for outstanding teleplay. Though his contemporary fantasies have been compared favorably with the dark visions of Borges, Barthelme, Poe and Kafka, Ellison resists categorization with a vehemence that alienates critics and reviewers seeking easy pigeonholes for an extraordinary writer. The San Francisco Chronicle writes, "The categories are too small to describe Harlan Ellison. Lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, moralist, purveyor of pure horror and black comedy; he is all these and more." In this, his thirty-seventh book, setting down as never before the mortal dreads we all share, Harlan Ellison has put together his best work to date: sixteen uncollected stories (half of which are award-winners), totaling a marvel-filled 105,000 words and including a brand-new novella, his longest work in over a dozen years.

Cover Art by Leo and Diane Dillon

Ebook

All persons, places and organizations in this book—except those clearly in the public domain—are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons, places or organizations living, dead or defunct is purely coincidental. These are works of fiction.

First printing, June 2008

The quotation on page 166 from POE POE POE POE POE POE POE by Daniel Hoffman (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., Copyright © 1972 by Daniel Hoffman) is used by permission of the author.

Introduction: "Mortal Dreads," copyright © 1980 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Jeffty Is Five," "Alive and Well and on a Friendless Voyage," "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?," "Flop Sewat," "Shoppe Keeper," "Opium" and "The Other Eye of Polyphemus," copyright © 1977 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 2005 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

"Would You Do It For a Penny?" (written in collaboration with Haskell Barkin); copyright © 1967 by Harlan Ellison and Haskell Barkin. Renewed, © 1995 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation and Haskell Barkin.

"The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge," "Count the Clock That Tells the Time," "The Executioner of the Malformed Chicken," "Django" and "All the Birds Come Home To Roost," copyright © 1978 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
 
"All the Lies That Are My Life," by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1980 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
 
"In the Fourth Year of the War," copyright © 1979 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
 
"Shatterday" copyright © 1975 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 2003 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7592-0789-9
ISBN-10: 0-7592-0789-5

Shatterday
is an Edgeworks Abbey^® Offering in association with E-Reads^®.
Published by arrangement with the Author and
The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Copyright © 1980 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. Renewed, © 2007 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical—including photocopy, recording, Internet posting, electronic bulletin board—or any other information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Author or the Author's agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio, television or in a recognized on-line journal. For information address Author's agent:

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Jim Blish once dedicated a book to me.

He did other things for me:
He introduced me to the music of Charles Ives, to the taste of Vander Flip, to the urgency of avoiding the said-bookism, to the concept of the watershed, to the pleasures of Indo-Ceylonese food.

He taught me the value of uncompromising literary criticism and the absolute necessity for perfect grammar, and I try, Jim, God knows I try. But the most indispensable lessons he taught were how badly I could write when I wasn't paying attention, and how I could be king of the world when I did the work with love and courage.

Jim is gone now, but for all that, and for much more, this progress report, this book, with respect and friendship, for

JAMES BLISH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When the time comes to assemble the indicia matter for one of my books I am invariably astonished at how many dear friends, wise sources and dedicated readers have lent their encouragement, store of obscure facts, concern and, sometimes, homes in aid of the creation. To sum them without naming them, to say, "You know who you are," would be to demean their invaluable gifts at precisely the moment I needed them. And so, with your indulgence, a compendium of worthy heurists, with love and thanks: Isaac Asimov; Haskell Barkin; Keith Berwick; Victoria Bolles; Ben Bova; Jacques Brel; Ed Bryant; Ms. Marty Clark; John Clute; Arthur Byron Cover; Jack Danon; Richard Delap; Bill Desmond; Leo & Diane Dillon; George Alec Effinger; Lori Ellison; Audrey & Ed Ferman; Stacey Franchild; Kelly Freas; Kenneth L. Gross; Jim Harmon; Fred Harris & Carole Hemingway of KABC-AM, Los Angeles; Gary Hoppenstand; the Iguanacon committee of the 36th World Science Fiction Convention; Walter Koenig; Shelley Levinson; Edward London; Barry Malzberg; Lydia Marano; Sheryl Dichter Martin; Terry Martin; Vincent McCaffrey & the staff of the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookstore, Boston; Thomas F. Monteleone; Michael Moorcock; Jonathan Ostrowsky; Tom Owen; Ms. Eusona Parker; Sue Pounds & the staff of The Portobello Hotel, London; Charles Ryan; Mary David Sheiner; Robert Silverberg; Julie Simmons; Linda M. Steele; Leslie Kay Swigart; and with greater sense of loss than I can convey, to the memory of Victoria Chen Haider, my editor at Playboy, who died on 25 May 1979 in the crash of a DC-10 in Chicago.