A chapbook by English fantasist Christopher Priest, it makes no pretensions of literary analysis. Instead, it is a detailed, unsparing rant regarding the long-promised, never-published third volume of Ellison's Dangerous Visions science fiction anthology series.
Though Priest offers plenty of documentation and the comments of many authors who have felt burned by the book's two-decade-long nonappearance, the pamphlet ultimately fails as anything more than a shrill, self-pitying screed. Priest is one of those authors and as such can hardly be counted on to offer an entirely objective view. Right or wrong, The Book on the Edge of Forever carries a distinctly vengeful tone. One wonders what Priest could have accomplished had he devoted his efforts to helping Ellison get The Last Dangerous Visions, rather than this pamphlet, into print.
The text of The Book on the Edge of Forever (under its original UK title, The Last Deadloss Visions) used to be available on the Web, but it was removed in early 1998, apparently at the author's request. Good riddance.
