Why am I passionate about this?
I’m a writer, editor, and publisher. As a child in the 1970s, I first discovered a taste for adventure stories in the pages of Marvel comics. This lead to a wider interest in fiction, particularly sci-fi, horror, and adventure tales. I believe one of the basic tenets to becoming a good writer is to read…a lot. I gravitate toward well-known but also lesser-known stories. My main criteria: is the writing engaging, does it inspire me to keep reading? As a writer, I ask myself these same questions about my work. The titles in this list are among the benchmarks I aim for when writing and editing.
David's book list on reads that stick with you long after you finish
Why did David love this book?
One of the first Ellison books I ever read and the one that haunts me the most.
Deathbird Stories lives up to its title and delivers a tour de force of fantasy and horror that only Ellison could have written. The nineteen stories in this collection are, in a sense, about gods. Not the gods we know and may worship but new ones. “A New Testament of deities for the computerized age of confrontation and relevance,” as notes Ellison in his introduction.
You’ll likely want to read every story in this collection several times, though to the casual reader looking for a taste, I recommend “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” an unflinchingly honest assessment of human behavior and depravity—and based in part on actual events.
I’ve seldom been so gutted by a short story, and it hits me every time I re-read it.
1 author picked Deathbird Stories as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Masterpieces of myth and terror about modern gods from technology to drugs to materialism-"fantasy at its most bizarre and unsettling" (The New York Times).
As Earth approaches Armageddon, a man embarks on a quest to confront God in the Hugo Award-winning novelette, "The Deathbird."
In New York City, a brutal act of violence summons a malevolent spirit and a growing congregation of desensitized worshippers in "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," an Edgar Award winner influenced by the real-life murder of Queens resident Kitty Genovese in 1964.
In "Paingod," the deity tasked with inflicting pain and suffering on every living being…