Reviews

In this collection, Ellison says, ``This is a book of stories you may think of as angry candy . . . stories I wrote because my friends are gone, a lot of them. . . . '' His introduction is a sad litany, a long list of lost friends. Perhaps he wrote these stories to comfort himself and othersas a way of pretending that people who die do not go into the earth, but ``beyond that beyond most edge.'' To facilitate suspension of disbelief, Ellison's prose is dry, matter-of-fact; he tells the wildest possible tales in the most rational, sane tone. Among the collection is ``Palladin of the Lost Hour,'' a heroic tale involving an old man and a magic watch, which explores the passage of guardianship from an old to young man. All fairy tales for grown-ups and science fiction devotees.Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J.

Ellison's first book in six years, a harvesting of previously uncollected stories, is one of his best. The 17 stories are prefaced by ``The Wind Took Your Answer Away,'' a remembrance and homage to the author's friends who have died since 1985and there have been manywritten with sadness and rage. Indeed, death or mourning figure in many of these tales. ``Paladin of the Lost Hour'' is an overly sentimental tale of an old man who keeps guard over an exiled hour that must never enter the time stream, lest time itself come to an end, and how he passes on his stewardship. Funny and intriguing, ``Laugh Track'' features a magician of a sound editor who conjures up the soul of the long-dead favorite aunt of a Hollywood writer from the sound of her laughter on an ancient sitcom laugh track. ``Prince Mishkin, and Hold the Relish'' is an hilarious anecdotal short-short about messed-up relationships between men and women and Dostoyevski. The urban horror story ``Soft Monkey'' tells of a retarded homeless old woman who witnesses a murder and is in turn pursued by the killers. Ellison's stories have too often been mechanistic, thin ideas fleshed out in overwriting and sentimentality. In this collection he demonstrates he's moving beyond that, becoming more complex, relaxed and reaching for emotion rather than sentiment. (October)