Mon 8 Apr 2024
SF Diary Review: HARLAN ELLISON “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.”
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[6] Comments
HARLAN ELLISON “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.” Novelette. First appeared in Knight, May 1967. First collected in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Pyramid, paperback original; 1st printing, April 1967; cover by Diane Dillon & Leo Dillon). Reprinted in Best SF: 1967, edited by Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison (Berkley, paperback original, 1968), among others. Nominated in 1968 for both the Hugo and Nebula awards for 1967.
The soul of a blue-eyed, dyed blonde scrabbling her way from poverty, is trapped in a Vegas slot machine, and Kostner is betrayed into playing one time too many. An accurate expression of life as typified by Las Vegas. (5)
— June 1968.
April 8th, 2024 at 7:52 pm
I do wish I’d had the sense to write up some of these recent diary reviews a lot more than I did, but of course back then I had no idea that anyone else than me would ever see them, much less than the whole world.
There was a time when Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison were contemporary writers, but to me it was like a relay race with Dick handing off the baton to Harlan Ellison as to who was my favorite SF writer at the moment.
April 8th, 2024 at 8:45 pm
Apparently an anthology of sf short stories which Harlan Ellison was putting together when he died has been completed and is soon to be published:
https://file770.com/the-last-dangerous-visions-available-for-pre-order/
April 8th, 2024 at 9:47 pm
THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS has been controversial since its very beginnings, back in the 1970s, I think? First for never getting published, and now that it’s about to be.
Is it an artifact now, or as cutting edge, as the first two “vision” books were? Probably (and hopefully, if done right) a little bit of both.
What I do wish is that Ellison had done it himself, back when he could have, but for never quite disclosed reasons, he couldn’t.
April 13th, 2024 at 8:06 pm
One of Ellison’s best shorts, with more human connection than many of his more pyrotechic works. Easily on a par with his very best.
April 13th, 2024 at 9:49 pm
I read it too long ago, and not at all since 1968. I don’t rate very many stories as a “5”. I will have to find a a copy and read it again.
April 28th, 2024 at 8:09 am
Apparently the story was adapted into the West German film Jackpot (1980), which I have sought in vain online for years. Any leads…?