A collection of twenty thought-provoking essays from "one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth" (Publishers Weekly).

Harlan Ellison--master essayist, gadfly, literary myth figure, and viewer of dark portent--has been, for the greater part of his life, a burr under the saddle of complacency. In this collection, his former assistant and confidante, Marty Clark, has culled from hundreds of rare and un-reprinted works to select twenty wide-ranging essays--nonfiction writings ranging from travelogue to media criticism, literary exploration to personal musing--that demonstrate why the monstre sacré of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen Award from PEN International for his journalistic forays.