Learn More

March 2016 – At WonderCon!

On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the launching of Star Trek – the Original Series, we are making the FIRST-TIME-EVER, 6-hour AUDIOBOOK, full-cast version of Harlan Ellison’s book THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER. This Skyboat project was funded on KICKSTARTER on March 18, 2016 for over $21,000.00. Not too shabby for our first Kickstarter baby!

To clarify, this book contains Harlan Ellison’s original teleplay; NOT the one eventually filmed. This is the episode which won the Writers’ Guild Award for best dramatic hour-long script. The filmed teleplay also won Harlan a Hugo Award. The book also contains Harlan’s Essay on the controversy backstory, and several tributes from his colleagues.

Harlan Ellison has published a book, which contains his original script along with an introductory essay giving his side of the controversy. This project will bring to the public that essay, in Harlan’s own voice, plus a multi-voice enactment of the teleplay, along with two re-written scenes in an audiobook format. Harlan has entrusted this book to Skyboat for Audio Production.

• Harlan’s INTRODUCTORY ESSAY – 80 pages
• First Treatment, 21 March 1966
• Second Treatment, 13 May 1966
• The WGA-winning Teleplay (Full-Cast)
• 2nd Revised Final Draft PROLOGUE & ACT ONE, 1 December 1966
• AFTERWORDS written by Peter David, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy, Melinda Snodgrass and George Takei
• To give voice to this controversial episode in Star Trek history, we will include his original, WGA Award winning teleplay – performed by (among others to yet be announced):
  • LeVar Burton, Emmy and Grammy Award winner, well-loved as Geordi La Forge on Star Trek® The Next Generation, and Co-Founder and Curator-in-Chief of Reading Rainbow, and its amazing Kickstarter
  • Tony Award winner John Rubinstein, at the helm as Captain Kirk
  • Audiobook rockstar and Golden Voice narrator, Scott Brick as Mr. Spock
  • Emmy Award winner Jean Smart as Edith Keeler (originally played by Joan Collins in the television episode)
  • Harlan Ellison narrating the role of “Trooper” which he wrote for himself to play (cut in the shooting teleplay)
  • Stefan Rudnicki two-time Hugo Winner for Lightspeed Magazine Best Semi-Prozine, awarded Golden Voice of Science Fiction by Audiofile Magazine, as the Guardian of Time

  You will also hear the voices of:

  • Actor J. Paul Boehmer, recurring, multi-character player on Star Trek® TV shows: Voyager,Deep Space Nine and Enterprise
  • Velvet-voiced actor Richard McGonagle, was on Star Trek® The Next Generation as Dr. Ja’Dar in the episode “New Ground,” and as Commander Pete Harkins in episodes “Inside Man” & “Pathfinder”
  • David Gerrold, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author and screenwriter of the “Trouble with Tribbles”
  • Iconic television scriptwriter and story editor D.C. Fontana who penned Star Trek® The Original Series (TOS) episodes “That Which Survives” and “The Way to Eden”
  • Richard Gilliland, Captain Stan Cotter on TV series 24
  • Impressionist and stand-up comedian Jim Meskimen, from Whose Line Is It Anyway?
  • Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winner Orson Scott Card
  • Screen Actors Guild® and Academy Award® nominee Robert Forster

  Here is a sampling of the production audio so far:

• In addition, Harlan Ellison has narrated his essay describing the before, during, and after of the controversy surrounding the episode, which has been voted as the most beloved episode of the Star Trek® series. It also includes:

  • Harlan’s rewrite of the Prologue and Act One to eliminate the controversial “Jewels of Sound” drug-dealing elements that the censors and powers-that-were objected to at the time,
  • plus two screenplay treatments written by Harlan,
  • and tribute essays from authors and colleagues who-were-there.

The stunning art work is by Hugo Winner Elizabeth Leggett.