I’ve struggled for a long time to read short stories… my intuition was that they needed to be approached differently from novels, and so I could never really find a rhythm for them.

As a result, I’ve had this book on my shelf for several years. I finally decided to stop treating it like different stories, and just read it cover to cover like a normal book, whenever I had time (revolutionary, I know) and I ended up enjoying the book mightily.

The stories of this book are their own genre. Not sci-fi, not horror; always? More than both? Or, getting at the existential awe and intellectual humility that accompanies encounters with the unknown.

Harlan Ellison also writes in a way that makes ME want to write. As I’m reading, I can tell he’s making up the story as he writes, coming up with the beginning first, then the middle, then the end. You can tell he’s having so much fun. For the first time, it made me consider whether I have stories in me that might be worth sharing.