http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2720440.html

Third of the definitive NESFA six-volume collection of Zelazny's short fiction, poetry and prose. Most of the stories were ones I already knew from collections published in or shortly after Zelazny's lifetime, the most striking exceptions being the texts of two children's books, Here There Be Dragons and Way Up High, whose original publication was delayed for years because of a dispute with underground artist, Vaughn Bodē, whose illustrations were part of the story (sadly not reproduced here). There are several extracts from Creatures of Light and Darkness, originally published separately but not really comprehensible outside the framework of the novel. There is also the original short version of Damnation Alley, which as you'd expect is punchier than the novel-length version, and the deleted Corwin/Dara sex scene from The Guns of Avalon, which I'm sorry to say is less exciting than it sounds.

The short fiction is leavened by noted to the stories (helpful), poetry (not actually all that good, and much of it recycled from the novels) and book-ended by some essays by Zelazny himself and by a third installment of Christopher Kovacs' literary biography. I was pleased to read an anecdote in this last from a panel which I attended at Boskone 2007; it made me feel personally integrated into the narrative.

Anyway, for those who don't know Zelazny's work at all, any of these volumes would be quite a decent introduction; for those of us who are fans, it's nice to have everything between one set of covers. ( )

Another fantastic, well done continuation of the collected works & the life of Roger Zelazny. NESFA really did a fantastic job with this as they have with the others in the collection. The amount of research & documentation they did is staggering. They collected comments & old correspondence from Zelazny's friends & peers. The sheer number of authors that he interacted with is amazing. A list of them reads like the Who's Who of the SF & Fantasy community. The insight into that community is wonderful.

The stories were fantastic, as always. They were also well documented, each with a summary explanation of the allusions made & with related comments either by Zelazny, his editor or peers. Exactly what I've come to expect from the previous works. More fantastic was the corrected conversation between Morningside & Jack from "Jack of Shadows". It never seemed to be quite right & now I know why. There was also a deleted scene from "The Guns of Avalon" that was interesting, but not critical.

I had one complaint with the book, the lack of a few pictures. In the previous books, once or twice it was mentioned that Zelazny wrote a story based on a picture. In this volume, it was mentioned several times fairly close together. Often enough that I put the book down & tried to find them on the Internet without any luck. Even thumbnails would have been nice. A fairly minor complaint, but a real one. If I could knock off a 1/4 star for it, I would. I've heard that early in 2010, there might be a 7th volume that will correct this.

All told, this is another fantastic effort by NESFA. I highly recommend it to anyone, but it's a must if you're a fan of Zelazny's work, as I am.