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A review by moonpie
The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison
3.0
This isn't a short story, which I thought it was because I apparently have this thing against reading descriptions of books I'm borrowing. It's the original treatment, a revised treatment, the original script, and a section of the final tweaked, modified script for "The City on the Edge of Forever," which eventually became one of the most well-known episodes of Star Trek: Original Flavor. It's interesting to see it transform from Ellison's original concept into something closer to the episode I remember. It's fun to see what changes are made to the treatment and what changes between the two scripts.
It's probably not as fun for Ellison, who is still strongly attached to his original story as it was conceived -- and is vein-throbbingly angry about many, many things related to "The City on the Edge of Forever."
But you don't have to take my word for it; the first big chunk o'pages of this book is a long, windy screed against Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, Star Trek fans in general, the man in the moon . . . On the plus side, Ellison rants very well. The rant is entertaining, full of good vocab words, and gossipy. If that doesn't sound like a thing you want to read, skip to the treatments.
The original screenplay is okay. It's good. Not perfect, but maybe great? I'm not the best judge of that kind of thing. I liked imagining the original treatment as a Star Trek episode. But I also liked imagining the rewrites as Star Trek episodes. And I liked the finished episode. I think I'm just not invested enough to fiercely advocate for one over the other.
I enjoyed the afterwords, though. It was my first time reading anything written by a few of the people back there, so that was a nerdy little thrill.
It's probably not as fun for Ellison, who is still strongly attached to his original story as it was conceived -- and is vein-throbbingly angry about many, many things related to "The City on the Edge of Forever."
But you don't have to take my word for it; the first big chunk o'pages of this book is a long, windy screed against Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, Star Trek fans in general, the man in the moon . . . On the plus side, Ellison rants very well. The rant is entertaining, full of good vocab words, and gossipy. If that doesn't sound like a thing you want to read, skip to the treatments.
The original screenplay is okay. It's good. Not perfect, but maybe great? I'm not the best judge of that kind of thing. I liked imagining the original treatment as a Star Trek episode. But I also liked imagining the rewrites as Star Trek episodes. And I liked the finished episode. I think I'm just not invested enough to fiercely advocate for one over the other.
I enjoyed the afterwords, though. It was my first time reading anything written by a few of the people back there, so that was a nerdy little thrill.