[In the below review, Mort offers a positive critique of Mefisto in Onyx but criticizes Ellison for the manner in which the book was published.]

The hype that seems always to accompany Ellison is present once again: for one thing, Mefisto is just a long short story, originally published in Omni. For another, in his acknowledgments. Ellison slams the editors at TOR Books for their “rudeness, ineptitude, shortsightedness, cowardice, ignorant arrogance, and boneheaded behavior,” presumably because they wanted his story to appear in one of their “forgettable anthologies,” rather than in book form. Then there's the hype of Ellison's didactic narration: a treatise on taste, for instance, turning on one's choice of briefcases. All that said, Mefisto remains a terrific tale full of twists and knock-out punches, about a mind-reader called in to assess the thoughts of a serial killer before his electrocution. The prosecutor, an old girlfriend of the mind-reader, has fallen in love with the killer and become convinced of his innocence. In only a few pages Ellison delivers a harrowing portrait of a prison, of a serial killer, and of the peculiar personalities of women who fall in love with sociopaths. So this little tale is worth the price, but it's time for Ellison to deliver a real novel. With or without hype, fans would eat it up.