Patricia's review
Harlan Ellison's the City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay That Became the Classic Star Trek Episode by Harlan Ellison
As many people know and many more don't, Harlan Ellison has author credit for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," in which Kirk & Spock must go back to 1930s Earth to restore a timeline.
What many people don't know is that the original story was heavily edited in order to make it acceptable to the story editors and producers of Star Trek. Ellison has since famously complained about the job that was done to his work, and a good deal of that complaining can be found at length in the preface to this book. You can skip the 70 plus pages of ranting that Ellison does here, it's self-serving at best and it isn't his best ranting. He's angry, hurt, and feels a need to justify his bile, but it comes across as being from someone little better than an ingrate. Is this guy fully grown? he comes across as an angry teenager. When you work for someone, whether as a builder, a sculptor, or a screenwriter, you do what you're told. If he didn't want to work with Sta...more
What many people don't know is that the original story was heavily edited in order to make it acceptable to the story editors and producers of Star Trek. Ellison has since famously complained about the job that was done to his work, and a good deal of that complaining can be found at length in the preface to this book. You can skip the 70 plus pages of ranting that Ellison does here, it's self-serving at best and it isn't his best ranting. He's angry, hurt, and feels a need to justify his bile, but it comes across as being from someone little better than an ingrate. Is this guy fully grown? he comes across as an angry teenager. When you work for someone, whether as a builder, a sculptor, or a screenwriter, you do what you're told. If he didn't want to work with Sta...more
