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.