Over the Edge: Stories and Essays

Harlan Ellison

Apr 2014 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

An essential collection of short stories and essays from the multi-award-winning author of Deathbird Stories.
 
“Arguably the best and most prolific author of novellas and novelettes that Anglophone letters has produced.” —Norman Spinrad, author of Bug Jack Barron, from his Foreword
 
Despite the awards and accolades that categorize Harlan Ellison as a science fiction writer, his canon of work spans a diverse range of categories across fiction and nonfiction. He is, first and foremost, a writer of the human condition, whether he’s richly imagining characters’ experiences and adventures or commenting on the foibles and follies of those he had the misfortune to meet and observe.
 
Over the Edge brings together ten of Ellison’s stories and three of his essays. From a sheriff’s ignoble end in an Old West town to a conspiracy on the steel beams of a construction site and an astronaut’s lonely existence and descent into madness, Ellison’s fiction resides in a genre of his own creation. Meanwhile, his commentary about topics such as writing for Star Trek and interactions with fans captures real human behavior more bizarre and horrifying than anything his imagination can conjure.
 
Includes: “Pennies, Off a Dead Man’s Eyes,” “The End of the Time of Leinard,” “3,” “Faces of Fear: An Essay,” “Blind Lightning,” “Walk the High Steel,” “Shadow Play,” “The Words in Spock’s Mouth: An Essay,” “From a Great Height,” “Night Vigil,” “Xenogenesis: An Essay,” “Rock God,” “Ah-Wegh Thogha,” “Ernest and the Machine God”

About the author

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018), in a career spanning more than fifty years, wrote or edited one hundred fourteen books; more than seventeen hundred stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns; two dozen teleplays; and a dozen motion pictures. He won the Hugo Award eight and a half times (shared once); the Nebula Award three times; the Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association, five times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996); the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice; the Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award twice; and two Audie Awards (for the best in audio recordings); and he was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writers’ union. He was presented with the first Living Legend Award by the International Horror Critics at the 1995 World Horror Convention. Ellison is the only author in Hollywood ever to win the Writers Guild of America award for Outstanding Teleplay (solo work) four times, most recently for “Paladin of the Lost Hour,” his Twilight Zone episode that was Danny Kaye’s final role, in 1987. In 2006, Ellison was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Dreams with Sharp Teeth, the documentary chronicling his life and works, was released on DVD in May 2009. He passed away in 2018 at the age of eighty-four.