Ed Bryant (not to be confused with the Tennessee politician of the same name), is a savoured taste, one of those “minor” science fiction writers, like Chad Oliver or Lloyd Biggle, Jr., who make exploring the genre such a pleasure. A reader treasures an old copy of Cinnabar, with its moody, elegantly written stories, with much more affection than they can usually summon for anything by the big shots of the field. In the same way, a music fan will treasure vinyls of Tom Wait’s Rain Dogs, George Thorogood & the Destroyers, or John Hyatt’s Riding With the King. Ed Bryant may have been somewhat influenced by Harlan Ellison, of whom he was something of a protegé, and with whom he sometimes collaborated, but I think his real stylistic affinity is with Cordwainer Smith. Raised on a Wyoming cattle ranch, he does not share Ellison’s urban aesthetic, and his prose is not “contemporary” and slangy in the way Ellison’s always was. Anyway, if you can dig up a copy of Cinnabar (published in 1975), not necessarily an easy task, you will be rewarded with a series of interconnected stories, none of which seems to have an obvious point, but which together create an atmosphere which will cling in your memory for decades.
contents:
14959. [2] (Ed Bryant) Everyday Life in the City at the Center of Time [preface]
14960. [2] (Ed Bryant) The Road to Cinnabar [story]
14961. [2] (Ed Bryant) Jade Blue [story]
14962. [2] (Ed Bryant) Gray Matters [= Their Thousandth Season] [story]
14963. [3] (Ed Bryant) The Legend of Cougar Lou Landis [story]
14964. [2] (Ed Bryant) Hayes and the Heterogyne [story]
14965. [2] (Ed Bryant) Years Later [story]
14966. [2] (Ed Bryant) Sharking Down [story]
14967. [2] (Ed Bryant) Brain Terminal [story]
0 Comments.