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

Deathbird Stories, deemed by many to be Harlan Ellison's strongest compilation ever, was published in 1975. According to Ellison’s introduction, “Oblations at Alien Altars,” the theme of this volume is the worship of “the new gods . . . the new devils . . . The God of Smog and the God of Freudian Guilt. The Machine God.”

The collection opens with "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," winner of an Edgar Allan Poe Award. Based on the real-life murder of a woman named Kitty Genovese in front of a crowd of apathetic New Yorkers, this tale posits the presence of an urban deity enamored of harsh sacrifices drawn from the weaker elements of the citizenry. The protagonist, a woman named Beth, finds herself forced to choose between becoming either an unstained victim or a bloody-handed celebrant in the new unholy rites, and chooses the latter course.

Two other prize-taking stories close the collection. Both "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77°00’13” W" and "The Deathbird" took Hugo Awards in their respective years of magazine publication. The former story follows an inner hegira undertaken by Lawrence Talbot, the fabled Wolfman of the silver screen, as he seeks to find his missing soul and win surcease from a hellish life. Upon attaining his goal, however, he discovers instead a kind of unexpected grace and nobility. The latter story chronicles the final Gnostic struggle between a reborn Adam and the mad God who pretends to have made him, in the dying embers of a war-raddled and poisonous Earth.

In between these bracketing stories are a number of entries that encapsulate what has come to be recognized as Ellison at his best. "On the Downhill Side" captures a Peter Beagle-style wistfulness in its tale of two spirits seeking salvation in each other's arms. "Basilisk" boils down the horrors of the Vietnam War to one soldier's possession by the vengeful spirit of a totemic creature of the war god Mars. "At the Mouse Circus" charts the surreal course of a black man adrift among the hollow trophies of a white man's world. “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” is steeped in Las Vegas sleaze.

Characteristic of later Ellison, many of the stories collected here turn away from the purest exercises in either science fiction, fantasy, or realism. Tropes and styles from all three arenas begin to mix and blur, in a blending of all three modes. The hard-edged scientific vocabulary in "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans..." is in place to support a hallucinatory journey into inner space. Many of the talismans the protagonist encounters there are autobiographically specific to Ellison's life. Likewise, "The Deathbird" features an interpolated autobiographical essay, while its fantastical scenario of warring deities is partially categorized as a battle between superior aliens.

Plainly, twenty years into his career, Ellison was chafing at old structures and expectations, and was seeking to transcend the parameters of both the marketplace and his own past accomplishments.