The City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison
The City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison
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Synopsis

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—or 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?

About Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.

About Gabrielle de Cuir

Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.

About LeVar Burton

LeVar Burton is an Emmy Award–winning actor, presenter, director, author, and Earphones Award–winning narrator. He is best known for his roles as the host of the long-running PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow, as Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as the young Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots. He has also directed a number of television episodes for various iterations of Star Trek, among other programs. He was named 2017’s Best Male Literary Citizen by Literary Hub and is a 2020 recipient of the Ember Award for unsung contributions to literature.

About Scott Brick

Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.

About John Rubinstein

John Rubinstein is an actor, composer, and director who won a Tony Award for his starring role in Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God. He has narrated dozens of audiobooks, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards and being named a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2013.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.

About Robert Forster

Robert Forster is an award-winning film and television actor best known for his Oscar-nominated supporting role as Max Cherry in Jackie Brown.

About David Gerrold

David Gerrold is the author of the Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated The Man Who Folded Himself, When Harlie Was One, and the Chtorr, Dingillian, and Star Wolf series. He also wrote “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode of Star Trek, which was voted the most popular Star Trek episode of all time. He lives in Northridge, California.

About Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card, a New York Times bestselling author, has won several Hugo and Nebula awards for his works of speculative fiction.

About Bonnie MacBird

Bonnie MacBird was born and raised in San Francisco and fell in love with Sherlock Holmes by reading the canon at age ten. She attended Stanford University, earning a BA in Music and an MA in Film. Her long Hollywood career includes feature film development exec at Universal, the original screenplay for the movie TRON, three Emmy Awards for documentary writing and producing, numerous produced plays and musicals, and theatre credits as an actor and director. In addition to her work in entertainment, Bonnie teaches a popular screenwriting class at UCLA Extension, as well as being an accomplished water-colourist. She is a regular speaker on writing, creativity, and Sherlock Holmes. She lives in Los Angeles, with frequent trips to London    


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim

The City On The Edge Of Forever was originally written by Harlan Ellison, aired April 6, 1967, & has been voted the best original Star Trek episode ever. This audio version is kind of a nerd's paradise since it is a teleplay of an early script & has other revisions all read by a great cast. I saw th......more

Goodreads review by Michael

Once you get past the 70 page essay on how Gene Roddenberry ruined his brilliant script, you can read the original Harlan Ellison version of the classic "Trek" episode. And I can see why the changes that were made were made. This is a good script, a nice idea but it's not "Star Trek." And the best par......more

Goodreads review by Brad

I could probably go on and on about the City on the Edge of Forever debate, and the whys and wherefores of my feelings, but I don't really have the energy for that today, so I am going to sum up my thoughts in point form: --Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever is a superior piece of Sci-F......more

Goodreads review by Betsy

This book is half rant, half tv film script. Ellison wrote the original script for this Trekkie favorite, which is also my favorite episode, (along with "The Trouble With Tribbles"). I had never known there was such a long winded controversy over this. Ellison has been angry for 30 years over not on......more

Goodreads review by Amy H.

If you liked/loved "The City on the Edge of Forever," an episode generally held as one of the best single works in all of Star Trek, then you owe it to yourself to read the original script as Harlan Ellison wrote it -- or better yet, hear it. I listened to this in the 2016 full-cast audio recording......more


Quotes

“Ellison’s numerous fans along with the general clamoring for all things Trek are bound to put this book in high demand.” Library Journal

“What makes this the ST book of the year (maybe all time) is Ellison’s sputtering, raging, fuming introduction in which he sets the record straight, by God!” Booklist

“For the first time, science fiction maverick Harlan Ellison’s first-draft ‘Star Trek’ script is performed in its entirety, with ace voice talents John Rubinstein and Scott Brick gleefully taking on the major roles. A desperate Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy dives into a time portal and changes the course of human history, while Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are right behind, bent on reversing the damage. So begins one of the most popular episodes of the original ‘Star Trek’ television series. It’s also the most controversial. Reading from a number of interviews and essays, the outspoken Ellison re-voices his battles with ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry over the direction of the story. Both Ellison’s original script and the aired ‘edited’ version received major awards. So, listen and decide which version you prefer.” AudioFile


Awards

  • AudioFile Best Audiobook of the Year