2010 Nebula Award Nominee: Best Short Story
By Harlan Ellison®
Across the endless vista of human exerience the voiceless whispers of remarkable stories rustle on the wind, and too many of them escape our understanding because we do not know the many languages that fill the silence.
This story was posted online during the Nebula Awards voting period, which has ended. If you would like to read this story you can purchase a PDF copy of the February 2010 issue in which it appears.
{ 12 trackbacks }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s great to see such a powerful story published by Ellison, 55 years after his first Nebula nomination/win.
Although every story can (and should) mean something different to each reader, for me, this story resonated on three different levels.
Creative:
It delved deep into the themes of creativity (the creator and what it is he has created), and how such things are accepted or rejected by society at large, people who often are not ready to embrace new ideas or new ways — or who are not happy to look in the “funhouse mirror” of art and see what becomes of their own image once reflected therein.
Societal:
It also resonates with the feeling one (at least _this_ particular one) gets nowadays in U.S. society of a public divided — and strangely, of xenogenesis, because the last couple of generations seem more close-minded than the preceding, a stark contrast to the youth of the 1960s.
Personal:
One could (almost) read it as a parable of the man, or artist, and the celebrity (the man whom everyone knows from public appearances — think Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain, etc).
Of course, I may be reading _too much_ into the story — but that’s okay, because at least it provoked a lot of thought.
Excellent piece, even better than “Goodbye to All That,” at once reminiscent of Ellison predecessors like Borges and Westlake, while simultaneously being the unmistakable “voice” of Harlan Ellison. Sublime.
It’s a simple story, but deceptively so. DTS has identified the main elements very well, but the story is also an exploration of innocence and arrogance which I think is reflected in those twin endings. What, on first reading, might seem like a gimmicky ending succinctly captures what the story is about.
I have to say, though, that the way the story was laid out in the print version of the magazine adds to the impact of the ending(s), and the artwork that accompanied the story draws out other dimensions that might otherwise be underappreciated. If you like the story as it appears on this webpage, I urge you to seek out the print version of the magazine – you will not be disappointed.