Web of the City (Hard Case Crime)

Web of the City is early Ellison but his writing is in fine form. All the trademarks of your standard gang story are here, but Ellison imbues it with some real lived-in grit. I've enjoy many of Harlan Ellison's books (and Hard Case Crime's books). So I expected going in was going to love it. I didn't expect it to feel so familiar. Turns out there was an old episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour featuring James Caan and Walter Koenig based off Ellison's same experiences that inspired this book. Highly recommend seeking that out as well after finishing this book.

Harlan Ellison has been described (and he's personally agreed with the assessment that came from a dust jacket on one of his books) that he's possibly the most contentious person on Earth. But, wow! Can that boy write? Ellison is now only one candle shy of 80 and this book was first published in the early 1950's when he was dipping his toe into the street gang scene in NYC. Web of The City is the real West Side Story without the singing and the dancing. Puerto Rican Rusty Santoro tries to leave his gang, the Cougars, and finds it's harder than getting off the AARP mailing list. Fans of Ellison know that he can write with one hand tied behind his back but in this book it becomes apparent that the man had no learning curve. Back in the early `50s with this, his first published book, he hit the ground running with his bad-boy, hard hitting, in-your-face style of lit. The realism he's crafted in Web of The City makes it a difficult read; the world of gangs is ugly and brutal. It' difficult to comprehend that this setting and chronology where Ellison has placed Rusty Santoro is in the hidden underbelly of America's Golden Age of Ozzie and Harriet. Read it and weep readers: I did.

Has a West Side Story vibe to it.

I have been a big fan of Harlan Ellison and the Hard Case Crime books but never expected to find the two together. But it fits and it is a revelation because we see the roots of Ellison's style. Included in this collection is Harlan's very first novel written in 1957 and three early pulp stories with very similar themes. When I first started reading the images from West Side Story kept playing through my head. But soon we come to a scene of a gang fight in which a shard of glass is strapped to a pole and launched through someones eyeball. Nope, this is not West Side Story. This is the real thing. A world of Drugs and Sex and Violence. Harlan lived in this world to research this book. The first short story is the most interesting it features some of the same characters in a alternate version in which things happen differently. This over-sized trade paperback features a great painting by Glen Orbik. Harlan Ellison is one of America's greatest living writers and you will thoroughly enjoy this timeless tale which showcases some very early Ellison. The Man could always write. Highly Recommended

As an avid reader/collector of all things Ellison, This was an easy sell! Nice to have a Trade sized Hard Case too. As speculative fiction goes I've pretty much run the gamut, but the earlier '50s-era stories are still to be discovered. "Can't have it all?" Suuuure you can!

Like other reviewers, I am a big Harlan Ellison fan, but this book is derivative, unpleasant and cliched. Think of an arc from the gritty realism of The Amboy Dukes in the 1940s to the romanticized youth gangs of Broadway's West Side Story and Hollywood's Rebel Without A Cause in the mid-1950s--Web of the City lies in an unfortunate middle ground. Although Ellison reportedly joined a gang to research this novel, the characters and situations are impossible to believe. It seems to be drawn from early 1950s magazine articles on the horror of youth culture, but with more unpleasant violence than would be allowed by mainstream publishers. The book's attempts to shock are transparent. Even worse are the attempt to make the characters cool, which are pathetic. Three short stories are included. No Way Out is taken verbatim from novel, with a different ending pasted on. It works better in that format, but it's still not very good. No Game for Children is also a so-so short story. It's no better than No Way Out, but more interesting as it's possible to see some early Ellison style. Stand Still and Die is the best of the three, although the protagonist is such an idiot and the ending confrontation so silly that doesn't rise to the level of good. I don't understand why Hard Case decided to reprint this where there is so much great out-of-print crime fiction from the same era. Actually, I do understand, they figured correctly that the author's name would sell some books. But I think they'll lose more by tarnishing their brand than they'll gain by sales. In any event, read it at your own risk.

I could only give this book three stars. I tried hard to like it but it was difficult. It was a little rough in places and could have stood the service of a good proof-reader.

excellent copy thank you