Harlan Ellison's The Top of the Volcano

I want to take some time this week to talk about a book I particularly enjoy and feel everyone who loves its author should have. 

It's usually really difficult for me to recommend books to people from highly prolific authors that I love because, one I get into them, I read so many of their books, So, when promoted as to which book  I'd recommend to a first-time reader, I struggle. Each book has its strengths and weaknesses (and as a fairly forgiving reader, I emphasize what's good about the book always), and thus I have different reasons for loving each book. 

In this singular case (so far), though, I have a strong, concrete reason as to why this would be the book I'd recommend to a first-time reader who wanted to give this particular author a chance.

The author is Harlan Ellison, and the book is The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison.

One of my earliest posts on this blog was about Harlan (titled The Harlequin of SF, find it under the writers label in 2018). I wrote it shortly after I heard of his passing in 2018. He was (and remains), one of my favorite writers for many reasons. He was prolific. He was unique. He refused to be boxed into a single category of writer, having produced criticism, journalism, television, marvelous essays, and, at least, 1800 short stories, many of which were great. 

Don't get me wrong; he had his faults, and I was well aware of them. He was well known for having a temper, the magnitude of which could rival the eruptive power of Mount St. Helen. He was combative, unafraid of confrontation, evidently devoid of any fear, prone to spite and violence, and, at times, highly litigious. Despite that, I still think of him as a great writer (just not the most personable of human beings). 

As a writer, particularly, of short fiction and essays, there were very few people who could match him. However, Harlan is also a writer who is difficult to talk about with other people. Unlike many other great short story writers (like his near-contemporaries Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin), Harlan never wrote a novel of considerable note, and thus, among mainstream readers, who predominantly read novels, he lacks the same name recognition. Yet, he was highly prolific, with wonderful books like Angry Candy, Approaching Oblivion, Strange Wine, and The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World occupying spots on his bibliography. 

If I had to pick one book though, among them all, that I'd tell people to read and get a sense of what made (and makes), Harlan's work so good, it would be The Top of the Volcano.

In 2014, when the book initially came out, Ryan Britt of Tor.com wrote a piece largely bemoaning the publication of this book. He--a self-confessed, diehard Ellison fan himself--felt that the book was, to use a phrase of my own, too bougie. "If I’m going to enjoy Harlan Ellison," he wrote, "I’d prefer to read one of these stories in a way that makes them feel less “important.”" Harlan, for him, had always been a "writer of the streets," not some ivory-tower relic. And he's not wrong. 

Harlan's brash, singular literary voice isn't the result of literary or academic polish. He developed it by attending the school of hard-knocks in the waning days of the Pulp Magazines. "I learned in the pulps," Harlan said in the documentary of his life, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, "And that means writing and writing a lot."

On a fundamental level, however, Britt and my opinions part. His attitude towards the book--which he views in a similar light as a "best of" album to a favorite band--and mine are totally at odds. Best of compilations of anything (be it fiction or songs), are to me a great thing because it gives a new generation a chance to discover an artist from the past. The only true test we have in art is the passage of time. The good ones stick around, and the bad ones fade away. In order to have a chance of lasting though, new aficionados must have an opportunity to discover an artist's old wares. 

For that reason, in my opinion, Top of the Volcano is the perfect book to give to someone encountering Harlan for the first time. As I said before, Harlan's was at his best writing short fiction. With perhaps the exception of flash fiction (I simply can't think of a story of his that would qualify as such), there wasn't a single arena in that broad field of writing at which the man did not excel. He won 4 competitive Nebula Awards, all in the short fiction categories, three for Best Short Story and one for Best Novella, and 7 Hugo Awards, four for Best Short Story and three for Best Novelette. All of those stories, and others, are here in The Top of the Volcano. 

These stories are some of the best places to start with Harlan's work. Stories like ""Repent, Harlequin," Said the Ticktock Man," "The Deathbird," "The Beast that Shouted Loved at the Heart of the World," "I Have Not Mouth, and I Must Scream," and his famous novella, A Boy and his Dog, work as great litmus tests for a reader's sense of taste. If you can't stomach these stories, then Harlan may well not be the author for you. 

If, however, you do find yourself thoroughly enjoying the wild ride that Harlan takes you on in his stories, it may well compel you to discover his other works and find other stories that thrill you even more than the ones presented to you here. 

To close, I'll simply recommend that, if you do choose to get this book, I'd recommend checking out at least one of the stories beforehand. To that end, please consider listening to this wonderful audio version of one of my personal favorite stories, ""Repent, Harlequin," Said the Ticktock Man."