An Edge in My Voice

by Harlan Ellison

At the beginning of the 1980's Harlan Ellison agreed to do a regular column for the LA WEEKLY on the condition that they publish whatever he wrote, without revising it or suggesting rewrites. This collection collects what he wrote under those conditions. He writes in a conversational voice, but he is impassioned, persuasive, abusive and hilarious by turns.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Politics, Writing, Science, Criticism

548 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Harlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.

His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.

Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".

Reviews

[Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an collection of the columns Ellison wrote for the LA Weekly in the 80s. They were written with the admonishment that the paper could not edit them in any way. I remember reading most of these when they appeared weekly. I was an ardent fan of the column. So it is great that they now appear in one volume so I can nostalgically peruse them again.

The strength, and weakness, of these essays is that they are Harlan Ellison unedited. They exhibit his passion, his social awareness, and his awesome power with words. They also show off his narcissism, his obsession with himself, and his well publicized abrasiveness. A case in point is when Ellison writes about a series of racist letters from a heckler. Most authors would roll their eyes then throw the letters in the trash pile. Ellison makes it a personal mission to find this person and his narrative of this mission becomes both harrowing and rather disturbing.

Yet for the most part Ellison is point on in his recollections of the film business and the 80s socio-political scene. Reading both Ellison's well thought out commentaries and his at-the-moment rants...you get plenty of both...can be exhilarating. While there is no question that Ellison is one of the best fiction writers in the later part of the 20th century, there can also be a case made for Ellison being one of our most important essayists.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thing doesn't get five stars because it's so astonishingly brilliant or because I agree with Ellison's ideas; sometimes they're half-baked and often he's just totally bizarre. It gets five stars because I don't care HOW half-baked Ellison can get sometimes. Back when I read these opinionated essays packed with pratfalls and brilliant linguistic pirouettes, they affected me so profoundly that for me they completely revised what it means to write nonfiction. To this day whenever I sit down to write a blog post, opinion piece, essay or bit of personal experience, I'm always thinking a little bit about Ellison in his crazed '80s L.A. Weekly days. He's stylistically as much a part of my nonfiction as Hunter S. Thompson or Mark Twain. I don't know that Ellison always stands up to those giants, but man...he sure as fuck tried. The cat was aces, Daddy...aces. Diamond geezer. The man could abuse a typewriter like none other.

Parts of this book also serve as an unparalleled snapshot of the social debates in L.A. during the time period of the columns. Seriously interesting stuff as far as Los Angeles history goes.

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Ellison at his peak, and you'll probably either love it or hate it. Ellison tended to veer towards sarcasm and hyperbole, but the essence of his opinions come through loud and clear.

It's said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. These essays from the early 1980s (the bulk from 1982) are for the most part just as relevant today. Ellison rails against a President who lies and marks journalists for derision for publishing the truth. Other targets of Ellison's wrath include the fight for gun control, the fight for civil rights for women and minorities, the fight to defend environmental protection laws, and the greed of American corporations and their war against unions, to name a few. Perhaps the only major topic he didn't cover is health care. In between these were less weighty topics, but all were filled with Ellison's refusal to bow to authority or suffer fools.

[Timothy Swartout · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a compendium of the columns written by the author of the same name as the title of the book. Ellison was known as a contrarian in his lifetime. He wrote some fantastic speculative fiction(he did not prefer to be considered as a writer of science fiction). The specific topics of the columns are certainly dated(written in the early 1980’s) but their themes are timeless and universal. In the end, Ellison seems to say that we need to pay attention to voices other than our own and decide for ourselves if those voices are meaningful in our lives. What could be more true than that?

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Akin to Henry Rollins' long 21st century run as an LA Weekly columnist, Ellison's yearlong stint for the alt-weekly in the early 1980s brought a recognizable name with a sometimes angry, profane style. For good or bad, Ellison was less focused, churning out columns that often ran 2,000 to 5,000 words on whatever topic(s) occurred to him. Nearly 40 years on, most of them are still fun to read, and he won a PEN Award for them.

[Redsteve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much as I enjoy Ellison's writing, I was unimpressed by most of the columns in this book. For some reason, the writing style didn't grab me. I've enjoyed his nonfiction - like The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat - but, for the most part, these fell flat. On a side note, seeing how the political climate has "evolved" from when he was writing (Reagan era) to today is just plain depressing.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harlan Ellison (who is still around at this writing) was as an essayist as vivid and impassioned as his fiction.

At the beginning of the 1980s he agreed to do a regular column for the LA WEEKLY on the condition that they publish whatever he wrote without revising it or suggesting rewrites. He demanded, and got, the freedom to choose any target, no matter how sensitive to the paper's interests or its readership. A wise editor agreed. The results are collected in this volume.

His columns are not formally structured, but don't be misled into thinking these columns were easy. He writes in a conversational voice, establishing a personal rapport with the reader but these are personal letters from a brilliant, nimble conversationalist. Ellison cajoles, caresses, eulogizes, excoriates - and is not above playing pranks on people who send him hate mail. The columns evoke the tensions, the hopes and the lies of the Reagan Era; of Hollywood, advertising, and journalism in that time; of Ellison's advocacy of the Equal Rights Amendment and gun control. By turns, he is riotously funny, righteously indignant, and capable of issuing a devastating, fatwa-like call to outrage and democratic retribution.

Ellison contends that we should dispense with the notion that every common person is entitled to an opinion; but that every person should be entitled to an informed opinion and the means to express it, as befits a citizen of this nation. In this, it is call not only to outrage but to excellence.

[John Bruni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Harlan Ellison books always makes me feel like I've learned something important. I'm not just talking about vocabulary (and he sent me to the dictionary quite a few times over the course of this book), but there is a lot to discover about the human condition in these pages. I don't agree with all of Ellison's views (especially when it comes to art), but many of them inspire activism. He wants you all to care about very important issues like gun control and media censorship. You'll also learn a few valuable lessons about the writing industry and what to do if your publisher tries to screw you over. (Hint: take them to SMALL claims court and be very specific about naming people at the publishing house so they don't just send the janitor to defend themselves.) This is a very important book, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harlan Ellison is absolutely hilarious, as well as sharply intelligent, in his opinion-writing, and this book showcases these facts.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really waited overlong to read these they're bit dated.