One of science fiction's greats passed away late last month. I refer of course to Harlan Ellison, the author of Web of the City (1958), Spider Kiss (1961), and A Boy and His Dog (1969). But Ellison worked best in forms that were not book length. Among his many published collections of short stories, Stalking the Nightmare (1982), Angry Candy (1988) and Mind Fields (1994). No, that isn't a photo of Ellison I've attached here. I'll tell you who the b-and-w photo is of in due course. Ellison was probably best known, though, for having written the screenplay for the greatest episode of the original Star Trek, "City on the Edge of Forever." Or, rather, he wrote the first draft of the screenplay. My understanding is that Roddenberry re-wrote it quite radically, in ways to which Ellison was never reconciled. Well, that's show biz. The basic plot involves a time machine that sends Captain Kirk back to the year 1930, a soup kitchen in Depression-stri...