I imagine these works were more groundbreaking at the time of original publication. They're certainly an element of their time and can be reasonably compared to works such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or The Stars My Destination. I won't bother to provide any deep qualitative analysis here, other than to say that Ellison is clearly preoccupied with the bestial nature of humanity. There are no heroes in these stories, only lamentations of how consistently we fail to achieve any truly enlightened status.

Perhaps half a century ago, these stories would have been more disturbing and thought-provoking. In 2019, however, it just comes across as "Look at these terrible humans continuing to be terrible." I would recommend this book for its place in the history of Sci-Fi or those interested in exploring Ellison's writing style. However, I found the substance of the stories to be lacking.