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The full episode, in writing.
Imagine pouring your heart into a story, only to see it rewritten and your name still attached to the version you hate. That’s just the start of the Great Harlan Ellison Controversy—one that turned a single episode of Star Trek into a decades-long battle involving lawsuits, public feuds, and the soul of creative credit.
Harlan Ellison was no ordinary writer. By the time he died in 2018, he’d published more than 1,700 works—short stories, essays, scripts, even teleplays. He was known for his razor-sharp stories like “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” and “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” But as much as for his writing, Ellison was famous for being outspoken, combative, and sometimes downright abrasive. He once described himself in Stephen King’s Danse Macabre as “a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket.” That attitude set the stage for the biggest controversy of his career.
The spark was lit back in 1967, when Ellison wrote the script for a Star Trek episode called “The City on the Edge of Forever.” That piece is still considered one of the best episodes in the entire Star Trek franchise. But Ellison hated the changes that Gene Roddenberry and others made to his original teleplay. He claimed the rewrites “diminished the value of the script.” Despite his anger, he kept his name on the credits instead of using his infamous pseudonym “Cordwainer Bird”—a name he typically reserved for projects so mangled by other hands that he wanted to disown them.
Ellison’s relationship with Hollywood was always volatile. He was once fired from Walt Disney Studios on his first day for joking about making an X-rated cartoon in the studio commissary, overheard by Roy O. Disney himself. Tension with producers was his default mode; when he clashed with Warner Bros. Head of Production Robert Shapiro over a screenplay adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot,” Ellison accused Shapiro of having “the intellectual and cranial capacity of an artichoke.” That got him dropped from the project.
But the Star Trek dispute stands out because it spilled into the public and lasted for decades. Ellison’s original script for “The City on the Edge of Forever” won the 1968 Writers Guild Award for best episodic drama in television, while the heavily rewritten version aired and won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Two versions of the same story, both awarded, but only one that Ellison recognized as truly his.
The saga didn’t end there. Ellison kept fighting for recognition and compensation for his work. On March 13, 2009, he sued CBS Paramount Television, demanding 25 percent of net receipts from merchandising, publishing, and other revenue related to the episode. He also sued the Writers Guild of America, arguing that they failed to act on his behalf. Variety reported on October 23, 2009 that a settlement had finally been reached, but the details weren’t made public.
Feuds and legal battles followed Ellison his whole career. In 1980, he and Ben Bova won a $337,000 judgment against ABC and Paramount Pictures, claiming the TV series Future Cop was based on their story “Brillo.” When James Cameron’s The Terminator hit theaters, Ellison alleged it borrowed from his 1964 Outer Limits episode “Soldier.” The production company settled out of court, and a credit acknowledging Ellison’s work was added to The Terminator’s home video releases.
Ellison wasn’t just litigious—he was theatrical about it. During a contract dispute with Signet/NAL Books, he sent the publisher dozens of bricks postage due and, ultimately, a dead gopher. He reportedly initiated legal action or takedown notices against more than 240 people who allegedly distributed his writings online. He once declared, “If you put your hand in my pocket, you'll drag back six inches of bloody stump.”
The controversy around Ellison wasn’t purely legal. He was known for public outbursts and clashes with other creators. In 1985, Ellison allegedly assaulted author Charles Platt at the Nebula Awards banquet. The two later signed a “non-aggression pact” promising to have no further contact. In another public incident, during the 2006 Hugo Awards ceremony, Ellison put a microphone in his mouth and then placed his hand on presenter Connie Willis’s breast, leading to further fallout and complaints.
One of the most notorious Ellison controversies centered on his role as editor of the anthology “The Last Dangerous Visions.” Announced in 1973 as a follow-up to two previous ground-breaking anthologies, the book was not published until October 2024, six years after Ellison’s death. Nearly 150 writers reportedly submitted works for the anthology, and the long delay became infamous in science fiction circles. British author Christopher Priest published a scathing article, “The Book on the Edge of Forever,” documenting broken promises and repeated missed deadlines. Ellison’s handling of the project led to personal threats and professional acrimony lasting decades.
Even Ellison’s enemies had their say. In the 1970s, cartoonist Gordon Carleton created “City on the Edge of Whatever,” a spoof featuring a character named “Arlan Hellison” who rails against “art defilers” and “script assassins.” Sharyn McCrumb’s mystery novel “Bimbos of the Death Sun” featured a murder victim based on Ellison. Fan feuds grew so intense that, after Ellison called the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets “America’s next generation of Nazis” at AggieCon in 1969, the school almost refused to approve future conventions. He was, however, invited back as Guest of Honor for AggieCon V in 1974.
Ellison’s combative style wasn’t limited to lawsuits and insults. He supported controversial figures like Ed Kramer, founder of Dragon Con, disputing evidence in Kramer’s sexual abuse case and clashing bitterly with writer Nancy A. Collins over the issue. This feud burned for years, only ending after Kramer entered an Alford plea in 2013.
Another flashpoint came in his suit against Fantagraphics, publisher of Comics As Art (We Told You So). Ellison sued for defamation over anecdotes related to comments he made about comic book writer Michael Fleisher. Fantagraphics tried to dismiss the suit, but a judge refused, and the case was resolved in 2007 with the publisher removing references from their website—no apology, no money changing hands.
Ellison’s distinctive pseudonym, Cordwainer Bird, became a badge of protest. He used it to signal when his creative vision had been so compromised that he no longer wanted his own name associated with a project. The first use came on “The Price of Doom,” an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, though the credits misspelled it as “Cord Wainer Bird.” The moniker appeared as a character played by Sammy Davis Jr. in an episode of Burke’s Law and was referenced in Ellison’s own fiction as a literary inside joke.
Ellison’s impact on the science fiction world was immense, but so was the chaos he left behind. As of 2013, he was the only three-time winner of the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and his mantle was stacked with Hugos, Bram Stokers, Edgars, and more. Yet, for every award there seemed to be another lawsuit, feud, or controversy trailing in his wake.
When Marvel Comics published The Incredible Hulk #286 in 1983, writer Bill Mantlo adapted Ellison’s “Soldier” for the story without credit. Ellison contacted Marvel’s then-Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter the moment the issue hit stands and, instead of demanding massive damages, asked for the same payment as Mantlo, proper credit, and a lifetime subscription to everything Marvel published.
On April 24, 2000, Ellison sued Stephen Robertson, AOL, and RemarQ after four of his stories were posted to a usenet newsgroup without authorization. He argued that they hadn’t halted copyright infringement according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. After settlements with the defendants, Ellison continued to pursue over 240 alleged internet infringers.
Strikingly, when The Last Dangerous Visions was finally published on October 1, 2024—fifty-one years after it was announced—dozens of the original writers were dead, many stories were withdrawn, and some authors’ estates had to be traced just to secure rights. Christopher Priest, whose critique of Ellison’s delays helped spark the controversy, called the entire saga an example of “magical thinking” and said, “a lot of the writers have disowned their stories as juvenilia, or outdated, or simply because Ellison was acting like a dick.”