I recently picked up a collection of Harlan Ellison stories--it's called "Greatest Hits" but you know what that means: it's stories people other than Ellison think are "important," rather than necessarily "good."
I've never read much Ellison up until now. I read "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" once after watching the Retsupurae of the game.
Starting with the illiterate NPR headline and the (I imagine he rolled in his grave when they added the un-Ellisonly) warning about "outdated cultural representations and language," I was a little wary, but kept moving forward.
For my detailed reviews of each individual story that I read, check the embedded video (it has chapters).
But overall, I say Ellison's prose is generally excellent, his descriptions are vivid with clever, visceral, and often unexpected use of metaphor and detail. The stories are generally well-paced, erring in the direction of too slow rather than too fast when I notice it. From what I've read of his personality, Ellison considered himself an agent of chaos in the literary world, and the stories I read reflect that idea pretty well, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.
At the same time, he had a tendency to be a bit vulgar for the sake of vulgarity and what we would call "edgelordy" in today's lingo. He was very good at finding and displaying all kinds of evil, insanity, and depravity, which can either work very well at illustrating a character's evil or simply feel unnecessary and offputting. It's a mixed bag.
My favorite stories out of those I read were "Jeffty Is Five" and "Mefisto in Onyx." The first is a fascinating story about the fragility of the past and the second is a crazy rollercoaster with so many twists and turns that you find yourself guessing at the contrast between the final sentence and the penultimate sentence. Before "Mefisto in Onyx" there was another content warning, which was eye-rollingly cowardly.
"Shatterday," "Chatting with Anubis," and "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" are solid, if somewhat straightforward stories.
"The Deathbird" is the pinnacle of literary chaos.
"Repent, Harlequin..." and "I Have No Mouth..." are way more famous than they are actually good or interesting. The PC game version of "I Have No Mouth..." actually makes more sense somehow!
And "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" is a sad, oddly un-self-aware attempt to deflect responsibility from people for making other people indifferent.
Get the book here: https://a.co/d/00vlrneV
Free versions of the stories can be found at these links:
(unfortunately they're a bit scattered and most require "borrowing" at the Internet Archive)
"Repent, Harlequin" original pulp magazine
https://archive.org/details/galaxy_v24n02_1965-12_202209/page/134/mode/2up
"Repent" & "I Have no Mouth" & "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
https://archive.org/details/fantasiesofharla0000elli/mode/2up
"The Deathbird" & "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs"
https://archive.org/details/deathbirdstories0000elli_f0l9/mode/2up
"Chatting with Anubis" & "Mefisto in Onyx"
https://archive.org/details/slippageprecario0000elli/mode/2up
"Jeffty Is Five" & "Shatterday"
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