So pleased that Leiber has an anthology of his short work -- he was such a master, and is so relatively little-known by today's readers. I'm greatly enjoying flipping through this volume and finding old favorites as well as stories new to me. ( )

I was (very!) familiar with Leiber's fantasy work, especially the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series. But the depth of stories in this collection really surprised me. He ventured pretty far afield of swords and sorcery.

Especially in the earlier works, his adaptation of weird stories a la Lovecraft to urban, more twentieth century settings was outstanding. He loves to insert the fantastic and horrific into post-WWII, modern settings where the contrast really works to point out the decay of what was supposed to be a bright, shining world.

Anyway, if you haven't read beyond his more famous stuff, there's plenty of delightful surprise here. ( )

It's small press. It's out of print. & it may be the best available selection of his brillant short fiction. Leiber is as good, or better, than many of the slick fantasy writers of his day. There are major stories here, stories that deserve a readership beyond genre boundaries. ( )

http://home.comcast.net/~tonydal/wiseguy_reviews.htm ( )