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Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories

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Harlan Ellison Deathbird Stories

Deathbird Stories: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Harlan Ellison’s masterwork of myth and terror as he seduces all innocence on a mind-freezing odyssey into the darkest reaches of mortal terror and the most dazzling heights of Olympian hell in his finest collection. Deathbird Stories Unlike some of Ellison’s collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979). When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction. His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat… as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you’ll ever experience. - “Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing.” -

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Use the needle. Put the suffering Earth out of its misery. It belongs to you now.

Nathan Stack was secure in the power he contained. A power that far outstripped that of gods or Snakes or mad creators who stuck pins in their creations, who broke their toys.

YOU CAN’T. I WON’T LET YOU.

Nathan Stack walked around the burning bush as it crackled impotently in rage. He looked at it almost pityingly, remembering the Wizard of Oz with his great and ominous disembodied head floating in mist and lightning, and the poor little man behind the curtain turning the dials to create the effects. Stack walked around the effect, knowing he had more power than this sad, poor thing that had held his race in thrall since before Lilith had been taken from him.

He went in search of the mad one who capitalized his name.

23

Zarathustra descended alone from the mountains, encountering no one. But when he came into the forest, all at once there stood before him an old man who had left his holy cottage to look for roots in the woods. And thus spoke the old man to Zarathustra:

“No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago he passed this way. Zarathustra he was called, but he has changed. At that time you carried your ashes to the mountains; would you now carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear to be punished as an arsonist?

“Zarathustra has changed, Zarathustra has become a child, Zarathustra is an awakened one; what do you now want among the sleepers? You lived in your solitude as in the sea, and the sea carried you. Alas, would you now climb ashore? Alas, would you again drag your own body?”

Zarathustra answered: “I love man.”

“Why,” asked the saint, “did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved man all too much? Now I loved God; man I love not. Man is for me too imperfect a thing. Love of man would kill me.”

“And what is the saint doing in the forest?” asked Zarathustra.

The saint answered: “I make songs and sing them; and when I make songs, I laugh, cry, and hum: thus I praise God. With singing, crying, laughing, and humming, I praise the god who is my god. But what do you bring us as a gift?”

When Zarathustra had heard these words he bade the saint farewell and said: “What could I have to give you? But let me go quickly lest I take something from you!” And thus they separated, the old one and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.

But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to this heart: “Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!”

24

Stack found the mad one wandering in the forest of final moments. He was an old, tired man, and Stack knew with a wave of his hand he could end it for this god in a moment. But what was the reason for it? It was even too late for revenge. It had been too late from the start. So he let the old one go his way, wandering in the forest, mumbling to himself, I WON’T LET YOU DO IT, in the voice of a cranky child; mumbling pathetically, OH, PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO GO TO BED YET. I’M NOT YET DONE PLAYING.

And Stack came back to Snake, who had served his function and protected Stack until Stack had learned that he was more powerful than the god he’d worshipped all through the history of Men. He came back to Snake and their hands touched and the bond of friendship was sealed at last, at the end.

Then they worked together and Nathan Stack used the needle with a wave of his hands, and the Earth could not sigh with relief as its endless pain was ended…but it did sigh, and it settled in upon itself, and the molten core went out, and the winds died, and from high above them Stack heard the fulfillment of Snake’s final act; he heard the descent of the Deathbird.

“What was your name?” Stack asked his friend.

Dira.

And the Deathbird settled down across the tired shape of the Earth, and it spread its wings wide, and brought them over and down, and enfolded the Earth as a mother enfolds her weary child. Dira settled down on the amethyst floor of the dark-shrouded palace, and closed his single eye with gratitude. To sleep at last, at the end.

All this, as Nathan Stack stood watching. He was the last, at the end, and because he had come to own—if even for a few moments—that which could have been his from the start, had he but known, he did not sleep but stood and watched. Knowing at last, at the end, that he had loved and done no wrong.

25

The Deathbird closed its wings over the Earth until at last, at the end, there was only the great bird crouched over the dead cinder. Then the Deathbird raised its head to the star-filled sky and repeated the sigh of loss the Earth had felt at the end. Then its eyes closed, it tucked its head carefully under its wing, and all was night.

Far away, the stars waited for the cry of the Deathbird to reach them so final moments could be observed at last, at the end, for the race of Men.

26
THIS IS FOR MARK TWAIN

“Impiety: your irreverence toward my deity.”

—Ambrose Bierce

GRATIA GRATIAM PARIT

It took ten years to complete this cycle of stories. I never suffered from a lack of support from those around me, who were unstinting with their enthusiasm and encouragement. These are some of the people who had the right words and smiles when I needed them: Holly Bower. Ben Bova, R. Glenn Wright. Leonard Isaacs. Edward Ferman. Ralph Weinstock. Bentley Morriss, James Sallis. Thomas Disch, Dona Sadock, Dr. Richard Carrigan. Mildred Downey Broxon. Terry Carr. Robert Silverberg, Martin Shapiro, Max Katz, Karen Friedrich Katz. James Tiptree, Jr., Norman Spinrad, Ed Bryant, David Catkins, Rosalind Harvey, Huck and Carol Barkin, Louise Farr, Damon Knight. Kate Wilhelm. the students of the Clarion Writers. Workshops, 1971 and 1972, Jane Rotrosen; and most specially, with utmost patience and a concern for this book that went far beyond mere publishing courtesy, my original editor, Ms. Victoria Schochet, without whose pushing and shoving and ramrodding and affection, this book might never have been completed. For Vicky, and for my friend and former agent, Robert Mills, there are no words rich enough to convey my continuing thanks.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Excerpt on page 259 from “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets , copyright © 1943. by T. S. Eliot; copyright © 1971, by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. / “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” appeared in the Harper & Row anthology BAD MOON RISING (edited by Thomas M. Disch). Copyright © 1973 by Harlan Ellison. / “Along the Scenic Route” copyright © 1969 by Harlan Ellison. / “On the Downhill Side” appeared in UNIVERSE 2 (edited by Terry Carr). Copyright © 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / “O Ye of little Faith” copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / “Neon” copyright © 1973 by Harlan Ellison./”Basilisk” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (edited by Edward L. Ferman). Copyright © 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright © 1967 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 19 September 1967. Copyright © 1967 by Harlan Ellison. / “Corpse” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright © 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / “Shattered like a Glass Goblin” copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer” originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright © 1966 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 16 April 1968. Copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / “The Face of Helene Bournouw” copyright © 1960, 1967 by Harlan Ellison. / “Bleeding Stones” appeared in Vertex (edited by Don Pfiel). Copyright © 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / “At the Mouse Circus” appeared in NEW DIMENSIONS 1 (edited by Robert Silverberg). Copyright © 1971 by Harlan Ellison. / “The Place with No Name” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright © 1969 by Mercury Press. Inc. Copyright reassigned to Author, 1979. Copyright © 1979 by Harlan Ellison. / “Paingod” originally appeared in Fantastic . Copyright © 1964 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 6 January 1981. Copyright © 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. / “Ernest and the Machine God” originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright © 1968 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author. 1968. Copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / “Rock God” copyright © 1969 by Harlan Ellison. / “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38°54’N. Longitude 77°00’ 13”W” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright © 1974 by Harlan Ellison. / “The Deathbird” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright © 1973 by Harlan Ellison.

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