Modern science fiction (and here I use the word modern to refer to the genre that emerged in the twentieth century) has its roots in short stories. The heyday of the pulp magazines saw hundred printed every year. Around the middle of the twentieth century, changes in publishing led to the rise of the science fiction novel. This ability to mass produce volumes of several hundred pages in turn led to two changes in how short stories were brought to the masses. First, the fix-up, in which short stores were strung together to create a novel. Secondly, the anthology – collections of short stories all in one place. Year’s Best and editor’s picks anthologies spread like wildfire, but very few have stood the test of time. Harlan Ellison’s 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions might just be the best known, and most highly regarded, science fiction anthology of all time. It contains thirty-three stories, all original to this volume, and heralded the arrival of the New Wave of Science Science Fiction.

I admit, I don’t particularly care for the New Wave. I read this book out of historical curiosity, and because it only cost me a pound. I’ll tackle the stories in a moment, but for me, the most interesting part was the forewords. There are forty pages of these, which is far too many, but it does help contextualise the New Wave. I had expected this anthology to be filled with young upstarts here to kick over the metaphorical haycart. It’s not like that at all. A lot of the authors collected herein were veterans even at the time of writing. It’s more a case of building on the Golden Age than sweeping it aside in favour of something totally new. Really the only person targeted with any ire is legendary editor John W. Campbell, who honestly does deserve a little flack for stagnating the genre, just as much as he deserves praise for helping codify science fiction.

This does not, however, mean that Dangerous Visions is any good. Far from it. Ellison’s challenge to the authors was to write without fear of consequence. To write without taboo. To be daring. Unfortunately, it seems that many of the authors interpreted this challenge as ‘write a load of complete gibberish.’ Yes, they were free to talk about sex, but several decided this meant they had to write about sexual assault. Yes, they could write about violence and evil, but what was shocking in the sixties seems terrible passé by today’s standards. There are stories here that border on utter nonsense, while others are simply not very good. The overwhelming majority, however, are just not to my tastes.

There are three exceptions. Keith Laumer is an author I have a mixed history with, but his piece ‘Test to Destruction’ is a gripping little war story. Robert Bloch is someone I don’t think I’ve encountered before, but his ‘A Toy for Juliette’ makes the most of the darkness and violence permissible to create a bloody and nasty story that still sits with me. Larry Niven’s star was very much on the ascent at the time of publication, so it’s no surprise that his entry ‘The Jigsaw Man’ is the strongest story in the collection. I look forward to reading more from all three authors if I can get my hands on it.

What sets Dangerous Visions apart from a lot of anthologies is the extent of the editorial involvement. Ellison partly self-funded the book, and contributed one of the (worst) stories. He also wrote an introduction to every story. Some of these introductions are longer than the stories themselves, and while Ellison has some fun anecdotes and was likely a great public speaker, in prose he comes across as incredibly annoying and self-indulgent. Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but the introductions are waffley enough to take attention away from the stories, and the paragraph-long authors’ afterwords for each story are for more interesting.

This book was worth a pound, I’ll give it that much. It was probably a great book at the time it was written. But books that seek to transgress or break boundaries are rarely served well by the passage of history, and time has not been kind to Dangerous Visions. These days, it comes across as tame at best, and weak at worst. Interesting as a historical artefact, but not as much more. As a book read in the twenty-first century, it’s ultimately rather forgettable.