Free love, the civil rights movement, women's lib, etc.
Then again, it's hard to read these within the context of the time in which they were written. There are some excellent stories here, a few decent ones, and some real stinkers that are terribly trite and not at all dangerous or visionary. When assembling the anthology, Ellison had each author write a story that they thought explored a dangerous vision or concept. It contains 35 stories, each never before published. Released in 1967, this anthology announced New Wave SF to the world. It was a concerted effort spearheaded by Harlan Ellison® (yes, his name actually has a ® in it) to bring Sci-Fi out of the pulps and show the world the literary value of speculation in fiction.ĭangerous Visions is the defining Speculative Fiction anthology of the New Wave era. This was the beginning of what a lot of folks today call "Literary Science Fiction" or "Speculative Fiction". Story-wise, New Wave was much more inwardly focused, and valued style and prose as much as the Golden Age valued grand ideas and outward exploration. Instead of beginning there, I jumped forward to the New Wave era that hit in the mid sixties. The Golden Age science fiction stories of the thirties, forties and fifties were a little less focused on stylistic prose or quality writing, and a little too culturally and scientifically removed from my era to interest me. Catching up for lost time became a real priority in my thirties. I think I suddenly realized how many valuable novels and stories and how much interesting history and perspective I missed out on throughout my twenties. I was an avid reader during my teens, but I read very little during my twenties for whatever reason. Something clicked in my head when I turned thirty I started devouring older science fiction stories.
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