13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
A great collection
Date of Review: Jul 24, 2006
The Bottom Line: This book is a great collection of science fiction and fantasy that novices and veterans to the genres will enjoy.
I was introduced with this book a couple of years ago in high school and it was my introduction to reading fantasy and science fiction. With stories like A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Troll Bridge by Niel Gaiman, The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E Howard, I'd say it was a great introduction.
The book does a good job of covering a very wide range of stories and it does a very good job of organizing everything. Garyn G. Roberts writes about how he chose the included stories in the preface of the book. He took these things into account:
1. The readability and fun of each story.
2. Expert opinion of professional authors of F&SF
3. Hardcore fan enthusiasm for each story
4. Author's favorites of their own stories
5. Story length
6. Story completeness (as single-standing works)
7. Unique and important contribution of each story to larger topic(s)
8. Each story's ability to represent the larger body of work by the author
He also states how he wanted to include a healthy mix of popular and "lost classics." This helps show the quality of the stories in this book. All of the stories are well organized chronologically by genre. Each story is briefly introduced with some words about the works of the respective writers and information about where the work was first published.
This book also has some great additions and "extra features." The middle pages have some color pages showing some famous paintings from the covers of old pulp magazines like Weird tales and Amazing Stories. In addition to these the book ends with some lists about science fiction and fantasy comic books, websites, themes, motifs, and settings.
This book is great for an introduction to science fiction and fantasy or just for a collection of great literature. The stories included were picked out carefully and are well organized. It will also take a while to finish reading all of them so the price is well worth it. Veterans of science fiction and fantasy will enjoy it as well. There might be some lost gems that you once read or more works by your favorite author that are included in this book. This is a great anthology.
