Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word

Rediscover the Early Ellison. This collection restores to print fifteen never-collected tales from the first dozen years of his career. Hard-hitting crime stories like €œThrill Kill,€ €œGirl at Gunpoint,€ €œKill Joy,€ €œKnife/Death€ and €œBurn My Killers!€ share the table of contents with stories of betrayal, including €œDeath Climb,€ €œRiff,€ €œMac€s Girl,€ and €œThe Honor in the Dying.€ And, together for the first time, Ellison€s three detective stories featuring insurance investigator Jerry Killian. Toss in the solo outing of a diminutive private dick named Big John Novak (of whom Ellison expected to write much more, but never did) and a sexy Western called €œSaddle Tramp€ and you€ve got quite an assemblage of tales from the seamier side of life. All that, plus €œThe Final Movement,€ a never-before-published story from the mid-1950s. Better than a poke in the eye with a white-hot bone of Amenhotep, I think you€ll agree.