<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Dangerous Visions was an all-original anthology of science fiction, first published in 1967. The general air of change and controversy in the '60s included science fiction, with the term New Wave frequently used to describe sf that challenged assumptions about sex, plotting, prose, and characterization that were then common in the field. In the United Kingdom, the magazine New Worlds, under the editorship of Michael Moorcock, published much New Wave writing.

Harlan Ellison sent out a call for sf that would challenge the field's taboos, and the result was Dangerous Visions. Unsurprisingly, the volume encompassed a wide range of quality and subject matter, from established writers finding new and exciting directions for their work to now-tame, would-be shockers, such as a story whose laboriously concealed secret is that the protagonist is attracted to his own sex. The successes were many, however. Fritz Leiber's "Gonna Roll the Bones," a deal-with-the-Devil story, won both the Hugo and the Nebula for Best Novelette. The more experimental "Riders of the Purple Wage," by Philip Jose Farmer, with Joycean puns and multiple storylines, won the Novella Hugo. Samuel R. Delany's "Aye, and Gomorrah," which postulated a shocking, if not entirely plausible, sexually repressive future, was voted the Short Story Nebula. Ellison received a special citation from the Worldcon committee for the anthology as a whole. Other popular stories in the book included "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" (Theodore Sturgeon), "The Jigsaw Man" (Larry Niven), ""Land of the Great Horses (R. A. Lafferty), and "Carcinoma Angels" (Norman Spinrad).

The perfect clarity of hindsight suggests that Ellison might profitably have left well enough alone, but he solicited more stories and, in 1972, produced Again, Dangerous Visions. That was judged less uniformly successful. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, later published as a book by itself, included a fascinating, well-thought out alien culture menaced by Terran bad guys apparently operating on the principle that "A white male's got to do what a white male's got to do." Richard Lupoff's linguistically inventive "With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama" became part of the novel Space War Blues, a particularly unlucky endeavor that was finally published after 10 years of delay, and pretty much ignored. Joanna Russ's "When It Changed" won the Short Story Nebula, James Tiptree Jr.'s "The Milk of Paradise" offered a brilliant intro to the author's themes, and "Getting Along" by James Blish presented skillful pastiches, but the collection was generally considered less successful, and most of the new authors presented with typical Ellisonian fanfare have not been heard from since.

In the introduction to Again, Dangerous Visions, Ellison announced that a companion volume, The Last Dangerous Visions, would be out in six months. It has never appeared.