Ellison's place in the vanguard of fantasy writing is largely due to his radical and conscious experimentation with technique in fiction writing. His stories always seem to break new ground or to redefine parameters of the genres in which he works. And, although this often makes his stories difficult to categorize — are they, for instance, science fiction or fantasy? —

it is probably his incredible eclecticism and idiosyncrasy which make him so readable and popular. Ellison himself considers his main contribution to be his "urging other writers — through speeches and articles and the implied directives of Dangerous Visions — to break free, experiment, stretch their muscles . . ." Experimentation has characterized his work from the beginning, and, although it adversely affected some of his earlier fiction, Ellison's willingness to take authorial risks and to transcend the forms of more conventional science fiction results more often in success than...