There's a documentary about the American science fiction writer Harlan Ellison at the Edinburgh Film Festival tomorrow (Wednesday, June 25 ). The blurb in the festival brochure describes him as "possibly the angriest writer alive". I don't think they really need to qualify that statement. There's no possibly about it. The teenage me loved that bubbling, apocalyptic anger, the sheer rage he vented at the world in every interview.

Rereading some of his short stories does, though, give a more nuanced view of the man. Sure there's a rather adolescent strain of provocation in him (again, one that suited the adolescent me). In How's the Night Life on Cissalda he posits sex-obsessed aliens materialising on earth and conjoining with every single human being - the Queen, the Pope, Truman Capote - and, err, there's no polite way to put this, basically fornicating them to death.

But the more interesting stories include one in which a man calls home only to find himself talking to another him, a "him" that then proceeds to take over his life - an idea that would appeal to JG Ballard or David Lynch, though here their cool reptilian visions are refracted through Ellison's blood hot prose.

Better yet is Jeffty is Five, a beautifully poised fantasy story about a friendship in which only one of the two boys in the story grows up. Ellison uses the idea as an elegy for the loss of innocence and a warm nostalgic hymn to post-war America - the candy he used to eat, the radio shows he used to listen to. A story that might suggest all that anger is really misdirected regret for what he - and we - might have lost.


WHAT I READ LAST WEEK

Monday, June 16
Night Surf, Stephen King (American Supernatural Tales, Penguin, 2007)

Tuesday, June 17
How's the Night Life on Cissalda, Harlan Ellison (Shatterday, Granada, 1983)

Wednesday, June 18
In the Fourth Year of the War, Harlan Ellison (Shatterday, Granada, 1983)

Thursday, June 19
Endless Night, Karl Edward Wagner (American Supernatural Tales, Penguin, 2007)

Friday, June 20
Four Blue Chairs, Hanif Kureishi (Midnight All Day, Faber, 1999)

Saturday, June 21
Morning in the Bowl of Night, Hanif Kureishi (Midnight All Day, Faber, 1999)

Sunday, June 22
The Umbrella, Hanif Kureishi (Midnight All Day, Faber, 1999)