Can & Can'tankerous

{{Short description|2015 collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox book

| name = Can & Can'tankerous

| image = Can_&_Can'takerous.jpg

| caption =

| author = Harlan Ellison

| cover_artist =

| country = United States

| language = English

| genre = Speculative fiction

| publisher = Subterranean Press

| release_date = December 31, 2015{{cite web|last1=n/a (2015-12-10)|title=Fiction Book Review: Can & Can'takerous|url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59606-751-6|website=publishersweekly.com|publisher=Publishers Weekly|accessdate=2017-04-05}}

| media_type = Print

| pages = 236

| isbn = 978-1-59606-751-6

| dewey =

| congress =

| oclc =

| preceded_by = The Last Person To Marry A Duck Lived 300 Years Ago

| followed_by =

}}

Can & Can'tankerous is a 2015 collection of previously uncollected short stories written by Harlan Ellison.{{cite web|work=NPR|title=Harlan Ellison Returns With A 'Can'tankerous' New Collection|date=January 2, 2016|author=Sheehan, Jason|url=https://www.npr.org/2016/01/02/461281398/harlan-ellison-returns-with-a-cantankerous-new-collection}} The collection includes the story "How Interesting: A Tiny Man", which won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Short Story alongside "Ponies" by Kij Johnson.{{cite web|last1=n/a|title=2011 Nebula Awards|url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?31+2011|website=isfdb.org|publisher=Internet Science Fiction Database|accessdate=2017-04-05}} The collection was edited by Jason Davis and includes an introduction to the story "Loose Cannon" written by Neil Gaiman.

Contents

::Originally published in Realms of Fantasy, February 2010 issue. Also reprinted in 2010 in Unrepentant: A Celebration of the Writings of Harlan Ellison, edited by Robert T. Garcia.

  • "Never Send to Know for Whom the Lettuce Wilts"

::First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 2002 issue. A heavily revised, expanded and retitled version of an Ellison story originally published in 1956. It was also included in the 2001 reprint collection Troublemakers.

  • "Objects of Desire in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear"

::The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 1999. Later included in the 2001 revised and expanded edition of The Essential Ellison.

  • "Harlan Ellison's Loose Cannon" (800-word introduction by Neil Gaiman)
  • "Loose Cannon; or, Rubber Ducks from Space"

::Amazing Stories, issue 603, 2004. A 200-word piece of flash fiction, written as part of the magazine's series of 1,000 words inspired by a painting.

  • "From A to Z, in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet"

::The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2001. Later included in Deathbird Stories: Expanded Edition, released in 2011 by Subterranean Press.{{isfdb contents |349096 |Deathbird Stories|(expanded edition, 2011)}}

  • "Weariness"

::Published in Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (2012).

  • "The Toad Prince; or, Sex Queen of the Martian Pleasure-Domes"

::Amazing Stories issue 600, 1999. A novelette that, according to the author's afterword, was originally written in the early 1990s. Reprinted the same year in Realms of Fantasy (August 2001).

  • "Incognita, Inc."

::Hemispheres, the Inflight Magazine of United Airlines, January 2001 issue. Also reprinted in 2001 in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and, in 2007, in Summer Chills, edited by Stephen Jones.

  • "Goodbye to All That"

::Appeared in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, a 2002 anthology edited by Michael Chabon. Originally written in the mid-1990s for the Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor comic series but not included at the time due to a publication hiatus, it was finally incorporated into the series in March 2007 as part of Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor: Volume Two.

  • "He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes"

::Published in Subterranean Magazine, The Final Issue, August 2014, online.

References