It's no surprise that Harlan Ellison's work is collected, anthologized, and constantly republished in newer, more accessible forms. He is, after all, a great writer. Not a great cult writer, or a great science-fiction author, but a great writer of everything from essays to screenplays. He wrote The City On The Edge Of Forever for the original Star Trek TV series, and it's perhaps the best episode in any incarnation of the show. He wrote The Glass Teat, one of the first books to demonize television. He's written thoughtful, two-fisted, angry stuff for the L.A. Free Press demonizing everything he wants to. He's also a great character, a man who worked for Disney for four hours—just long enough to be pink-slipped after top execs overheard him cutting up at the lunch table, joking about putting Mickey and Minnie in a porn movie. Therefore, it's no surprise that the new Edgeworks collection is wildly varied in nature, containing everything from a novel about rock 'n' roll damnation to essays on life's three most important elements to reportage of what it's like to create a television series. It's also no surprise that Edgeworks 2 is a dead-bang excellent read. Ellison might not want to live in a country that admits this, but he's a national treasure.