"The Deathbird" is a novelette by American writer

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of '' Psycho'' ...

. It won the 1974

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

1974 Hugo Awards
at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved August 27, 2017 and

Locus Award for Best Short Story The Locus Award for Best Short Story is one of a series of Locus Awards given every year by ''Locus Magazine''. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year. Originally known as the Locus Award for Best Sho ...

. It has been included in the author's

short story collection A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors (e.g., ''Les Soirées de Médan''). The s ...

Deathbird Stories ''Deathbird Stories: A Pantheon of Modern Gods'' is a 1975 collection of short stories by American author Harlan Ellison, written over a period of ten years; the stories address the theme of modern-day "deities" that have replaced the older, more ...

''.

Plot

The story is formatted as a test of sorts, worth 3/4 of some final grade. The action is interrupted at points with test questions, some of which do not make sense. Millions of years ago, "The Mad One", also known as

Ialdabaoth Yaldabaoth, Jaldabaoth, or Ildabaoth is an evil deity and creator of the material world in various Gnostic sects and movements, sometimes represented as a theriomorphic, lion-headed serpent. He is identified as the Demiurge and false god who ke ...

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

, took over the earth in a sort of cosmic lawsuit. The original creators left behind one last member of their race, Dira, to tell humans the truth about their god, but the dominant traditions throughout the ages denounce Dira as evil. Now, the world is coming to an end and Nathan Stack, the latest incarnation of a long line of humans going back to

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...

’s husband, is revived by Snake (aka Dira) after spending 250 thousand years in an underground crypt to make the journey to the mountain where God lives. He is the only human capable of confronting him and putting the Earth out of its misery through the summoning of what is referred to as the Deathbird. The story also contains a few side plots, presumably about Nathan Stack or previous reincarnations of him. These stories tell of people that have had to make difficult decisions, allowing loved ones to die. In one such story, his mother is partially paralyzed and suffering from cancer which will eventually, slowly and painfully, travel to her heart. She eventually convinces him to inject her with a lethal substance in a hypodermic needle, killing her and ending her pain. This situation is repeated at the end of the story, where Nathan Stack must "use the needle" to summon the Deathbird and end the pain of the planet.

References

1974 short stories Fantasy short stories Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works Short stories by Harlan Ellison Religious fiction {{1970s-sf-story-stub