Review of Harlan Ellison’s “The City on the Edge of Forever.”

Harlan Ellison's "The City on the Edge of Forever."
Author: Harlan Ellison
Page Count: 278
Cost: 10.29 U.S.A.
Publishing Date: 1996
Style: Paperback
ISBN: 1-56504-964-0
Rating: **** (out of a possible of five)

"Speak no ill of the dead?" Harlan Ellison

Ellison here is discussing, specifically, of speaking ill of the late Gene Roddenbury, who died several years ago.

Point of fact Ellison does speak ill of Roddenbury. Ellison speaks ill in great heaping quantities with enough vitriol to etch a starship hull.

The disheartening thing is, for devoted Star Trek fans, that much of what he says is right on target and backed up with corroborating evidence and outright confessions.

"Evil can come from good, and good from evil." Spock, the original screenplay of City of the Edge of Forever.

This book is partially about Ellison's original screenplay for what is considered the best episode of the original Star Trek series. It is the story where Kirk and Spock must leap through a big, glowing, talking hoop to stop McCoy -- who has already made the leap -- form altering the past so that the Federation and Star Fleet never existed.

Once in the past Kirk falls in love, truly in love and not one of his numerous tangos with aliens, with a woman who must die to preserve the future.

It is tragic, beautiful and memorable.

Would that all episodes of Star Trek have tried half as hard to tell a good story as this one did – for that matter, would that all fiction tried at least as half as hard.

The irony here is that the version generally regarded as the best episode is a watered down and castrated version of Ellisons original screenplay.

"We are going to give you Forever as you wished, they tell him, and motion towards the pillar of light that waits. Beckwith smiles a smile of triumph. Somehow, he knows not how, he has won. He dashes to the pillar of light, and steps into it..." City on the Edge of Forever initial treatment, by Harlan Ellison.

This book contains two drafts, the original screenplay, and a revision. In Ellison's original work, it is the above mentioned Beckworth who travel back in time, not McCoy.

The Beckworth character is a sorry soul, a drug dealer and murder. He escapes the Enterprise and the justice of Kirk to the world of the Guardians of Forever – who are not big, flashing lopsided dounuts – and flees into the past.

Kirk and Spock persue. While in the past Kirk does truly falls in love with Edith Keeler, only to learn that her pacifist philosophy takes hold of American and unfortunately allows the Nazi to win WW II.

Kirk cannot bring himself to let her die, and he certainly cannot kill her.

Neither can Beckworth, who is supposed to be a vile specimen of humanity.

"...and finds himself materializing in the heart of a sun. An execution that goes on forever and ever, for the guardians have altered their machines so that Beckworth is caught in a time-Mobius. An interlocked time-phase that puts him into the heart of blazing inferno just long enough to die, then snaps him out to a moment before he died, then puts him back then takes him out, over and over and over and over..." City on the Edge of Forever initial treatment, by Harlan Ellison.

Beckworth recieves this punishment not for being a killer, or drug dealer, or for trying to kill Kirk.

He recieves this punishment because he tries to save, Edith Keeler, the woman Kirk loves, in a selfless act of humanity.

"The supreme, overwhelming egocentricity of Gene Roddenbury, that could not permit him to admit anyone else in his mad-god universe was capable of grandeur, of expertise, of rectitude."

The original screenplay was very shootable. None of the main character were drug dealers or killers. It would not have a had a shooting budget higher than any other episodes. It required no more sets to be built and extras to be cast than any other episode.

Yet for 30 years, from the date the episode was filmed to the date of his death, Roddenbury and his closest associates said outrageous things about the original script and Ellison. It did not have a cast of thousands. It did not have Scotty dealing drugs. Yet Roddenbury persisted in telling the fans these things.

He also attacked Ellisons credibility and work ethic for no readily apparent reason.

Ellison spends the first 75 pages and about 30,000 words of this book setting the record straight, vigorously. He also supplies a great deal of evidence, including copies of letters and articles.

The end of the book also contains brief essays from Peter David, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and George Takei. Either they all support Ellison's version of the story, or at least say his original story is beautiful.

They are right.

If the book has a failing, it is that the first 75 pages become hard to read. No matter how justified, and it appear to be very justified, it is difficult to read that much angry text. The first section requires personal discipline to get through.

However, the screenplay is worth it. While this might not seem to have any application to RPG's, it does. If nothing else, the fans – narrators and players alike – of Last Unicorns Star Trek games should read this book for its valuable insight into the innerworks of the original series. Everyone else should read it on general principle.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)