Harlan Ellison (b. 1934) was arguably the pre-eminent writer of short SF during the mid-to-late 1960s, even amidst a field that at the time also had the astonishing talents of Roger Zelazny, Thomas Disch, Ursula Le Guin, Brian Aldiss, Michael Moorcock, etc. etc. Ellison, who became a Grand Master of the SFWA in 2006, has continued to produce works of considerable power and energy for over fifty years, yet he never sits on his laurels. In the 1960s, when he was winning award after award, he set himself the task of shaking up the field, making it take a long, hard look at itself. The result was the massive anthology Dangerous Visions (1967) which even now, forty years on, is still pretty astonishing.

I had read “The Region Between” when it first appeared in Galaxy back in 1970. It had originally been commissioned as one of a set of stories by different authors who all used a common starting point as set out in the story’s prologue, written by Keith Laumer. All five stories can be found in Five Fates (1970).

Ellison’s contribution was a longer work than one usually expects from him, but he nevertheless sustained its bombardment of ideas and feelings throughout. What’s more, Ellison created a story that demanded a different format to allow for full expression. The result was a typesetter’s nightmare but, as you will see, the experience now only makes this story all the more fascinating, it actually takes you into the story itself.

Mike Ashley