The City on the Edge of Forever

By: Harlan Ellison

Narrated by: full cast, Orson Scott Card, Bonnie MacBird, Richard J. Brewer, Ryan C. Britt, Richard Gilliland, Larry Nemacek

The original teleplay that became the classic Star Trek episode, with an expanded introductory essay by Harlan Ellison, The City on the Edge of Forever has been surrounded by controversy since the airing of an "eviscerated" version - which subsequently has been voted the most beloved episode in the series' history. In its original form, The City on the Edge of Forever won the 1966-67 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Teleplay. As aired, it won the 1967 Hugo Award.

The City on the Edge of Forever is, at its most basic, a poignant love story. Ellison takes the listener on a breathtaking trip through space and time, from the future all the way back to 1930s America. In this harrowing journey, Kirk and Spock race to apprehend a renegade criminal and restore the order of the universe. It is here that Kirk faces his ultimate dilemma: a choice between the universe - and his one true love.

This edition makes available the astonishing teleplay as Ellison intended it to be aired. The author's introductory essay reveals all of the details of what Ellison describes as a "fatally inept treatment" of his creative work. Was he unjustly edited, unjustly accused, and unjustly treated?

For a full cast/character list and table of contents, please visit www.SkyboatMedia.com.

©1975 Harlan Ellison. © 1995 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation. Afterwords © 1995 and 2016 by the authors (P)2016 Skyboat Media, Inc.

The real reading starts in chapter 5.

Chapters 1 through 4 are endless complaining and airing of behind the scenes fighting. Chapter 5 is where you start the readings of the various versions of the script. Chapters 1 through 4 get only 1 star. 5 stars for the rest of the book.

You aren't buying this for what you think you are buying it for...

No, while Harlan Ellison's original screenplay is poignant, poetic, and beautiful, what you are actually buying this for is listen, spellbound, as Harlan spends literally hours eviscerating all those who have wronged him in the past. Of course this is primarily Gene RoddenbJerry, but also those that supported him. These parts are actually recorded by Ellison and you can feel the relish in his voice as he sets the record straight, and he has receipts. It's classic Ellison. I imagine he must have been a very hard man to be friends with, but he is certainly an incredibly gifted, if cantankerous, writer.

A fascinating look at what could have been.

Experiencing this original draft of this classic Star Trek episode "The City on the edge of Forever" was quite interesting in and of itself, but all the supplementary material was fascinating. (to use a Spock term) It's a journey into, not only an alternate world where a markedly different version of the story took place , but a journey into the behind the scenes drama trying to get the story finished and produced. Writer Harlan Ellison's frustration at all the rewrites he was forced to do and subsequent drafts without him are understandable when one reads (or hears in this case) his first draft. Though I still enjoy the televised version, I can now see the greater strengths In his untouched work. Besides this, is the story of Harlan's feud with Gene Roddenberry over the whole affair and his surprising bad treatment by Gene in later years for no good reason. I'm glad Harlan finally got to tell his version of the story on both accounts. It's well worth a listen or a read!

The teleplay was great

I’m glad I listened to Ellison’s rant, but more enjoyed the alternate story of his original script and the brief telling of the revised script featuring McCoy. Ellison’s original is great science fiction. The broadcast version made for better television.

I Have Two Ears and I Must Applaud

I'd forgotten from half a century ago how overwhelmingly enamoured I was of Ellison's virtually inimitable verbal virtuosity, his prodigiously creative imagination, the gut-wrenching poignancy of many of his stories (and even the combination of analytical rigor and hysterical humor that pervaded his television reviews in both volumes of "The Glass Teat").

But now I remember, and having listened to this entrancing and eloquently narrated account of the truth about the appalling treatment of his original (and brilliant) script for "The City on the Edge of Forever," I can well understand some of the inspired mordancy of his reviews of television shows no more in the league of his own "dangerous visions," than Danielle Steel is in the league of James Joyce -- which is not even to insult Danielle Steel, because it was never her intent to produce timeless works of genius. Ellison, IMHO, produced virtually nothing else.

This is the best audio book to which I've listened in perhaps two years.