When teenager Cassie Wilson volunteers for a study in psychic phenomena at the university, she figures it will be a lot of fun. But the experiment goes terribly wrong and Cassie ends up in the hospital. She's fine, except for horrible nightmares--each one worse than the last. Then Cassie makes a startling discovery--what she sees in her nightmares come true.

Provides a history and criticism of an important disrupting force in early science-fiction television programming. In this TV Milestone, author Joanne Morreale highlights the differences of The Outer Limits (ABC 1963–65) from typical programs on the air in the 1960s. Morreale argues that the show provides insight into changes in the television industry as writers turned to genre fiction—in this case, a hybrid of science fiction and horror—to provide veiled social commentary. The show illustrates the tension between networks who wanted mainstream entertainment and the independent writer-producers, Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who wanted to use the medium to challenge viewers. In five chapters, The Outer Limitsmakes a case for the show's deployment of gothic melodrama and science fiction tropes, unique televisual characteristics, and creative adaptation of many cultural sources to interrogate the relationship between humans and technology in a way that continues to influence contemporary debate in such shows as Star Trek, The X-Files, and Black Mirror. Underlying the arguments is the eerie notion of The Outer Limitsas a disruptive force on television at the time, purposely making audiences uncomfortable. For example, in its iconic opening credit sequence a disembodied "Control Voice" claims to be taking over the television as images mimic signal interference. Other themes convey Cold War paranoia, ambivalence about the Kennedy era "New Frontier," and anxiety about the burgeoning military-industrial-governmental complex. The book points out that The Outer Limits presaged what came to be known as "quality" television. While most episodes followed the lowbrow tradition of televised science fiction by adapting previously published stories and films, the series elevated the genre by rearticulating it through themes and images drawn from myth, literature, and the art film. The Outer Limits is lucid yet accessible, well researched and argued, with enlightening discussions of specific episodes even as it gives attention to broader television history and theory. It will be of special interest to scholars and students of television and media studies, as well as fans of science fiction.

Humans have established a thriving colony on the planet Tarshish, until a native species of semi-insectoids awakens from a long incubation and attacks the colonoy. Only the children and a computer survive. The computer teaches the children how to form their own community, without adults.

With a foreword by Stephen King: Provocative and entertaining pieces from the multiple award-winning author. Pure, hundred‐proof distillation of Ellison. A righteous verbal high. Here you will find twenty of his very best stories and essays, including the four‐part ‘Scenes from the Real World,” an anecdotal history of the doomed TV series, The Starlost, that he created for NBC; “Tales from the Mountains of Madness”; and his hilariously brutal reportage on the three most important things in life, sex, violence, and labor relations. With an absolutely killer foreword by Stephen King.

When the evil wizard Destiny kidnaps Pixel, Score and Helaine must rescue him from the planet Zarathan, where nightmares come true and those who fall asleep die.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards: A science fiction classic about an antiestablishment rebel set on overthrowing the totalitarian society of the future. One of science fiction’s most antiestablishment authors rails against the accepted order while questioning blind obedience to the state in this unique pairing of short story and essay. “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” is set in a dystopian future society in which time is regulated by a heavy bureaucratic hand known as the Ticktockman. The rebellious Everett C. Marm flouts convention, masquerading as the anarchic Harlequin, disrupting the precise schedule with bullhorns and jellybeans in a world where being late is nothing short of a crime. But when his love, Pretty Alice, betrays Everett out of a desire to return to the punctuality to which she is programmed, he is forced to face the Ticktockman and his gauntlet of consequences. The bonus essay included in this volume, “Stealing Tomorrow,” is a hard-to-find Harlan Ellison masterwork, an exploration of the rebellious nature of the writer’s soul. Waxing poetic on humankind’s intellectual capabilities versus its emotional shortcomings, the author depicts an inner self that guides his words against the established bureaucracies, assuring us that the intent of his soul is to “come lumbering into town on a pink-and-yellow elephant, fast as Pegasus, and throw down on the established order.” Winner of the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” has become one of the most reprinted short stories in the English language. Fans of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will delight in this antiestablishment vision of a Big Brother society and the rebel determined to take it down. The perfect complement, “Stealing Tomorrow” is a hidden gem that reinforces Ellison’s belief in humankind’s inner nobility and the necessity to buck totalitarian forces that hamper our steady evolution.