Deathbird Stories
Another fine collection from Harlan Ellison. None of these stories would rank among my all-time favorites, but many of them were very good. And even the few that didn't really work for me, still left me impressed by their ambition and Ellison's fecund imagination.
My favorites from the collection were "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," a re-imagining of dark reality behind the infamous Kitty Genovese murder; "Basilisk," a story of a disgraced young veteran who returns from Vietnam with a dark secret to face hostility in his home town; "Bleeding Stones," in which gargoyles come to life to spread havoc; "Rock God," which tells of the origins of Stonehenge; and the eponymous "The Deathbird," a re-interpretation of the Genesis story that varies substantially from the biblical cosmology.
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Harlan Jay Ellison - Deathbird Stories - 8
Moderators: clong, Mr. Titanic
The introduction, "Oblations at Alien Altars," was fairly short, and reminiscent of key themes of Gaiman's recent American Gods. These are stories about Modern Gods (gods of things like machines, lust, beauty, money, urban violence) who are replacing traditional Deities that nobody believes in any longer. Ellison also prefaces each story with brief remarks that point you to who or what is being worshipped.