I've confessed to being a Vance aficionado, and so I feel driven to suggest a few early stories I think the editors ought to have included! Perhaps a few of these were left out mainly because they are already well-known. Certainly that explains the absence of any of the Dying Earth stories, and probably it also might be why such very fine early stories as "The Potters of Firsk," "The Gift of Gab," "The Men Return," and "The New Prime" do not appear here. Other than those I'm left with one story I'd have liked to have seen, an early novella that I quite enjoyed that seems very little known: "Chateau D'If" (aka "New Bodies for Old").

Such quibbling aside, this is a very enjoyable book. As more or less promised, it's not by any means Vance at his best. But Vance was ever a writer determined to entertain, and entertain he does. The book does include a couple of fairly prominent stories. "DP!" is one of his harder-hitting pieces, about the sudden appearance and distressing mistreatment of "trogs," early humans who had been driven underground millennia before. "Dodkin's Job," the latest story here, and the only one from Astounding (which also printed "The Potters of Firsk" and "The Gift of Gab"), is amusing social SF about a perfectly Organized society, and a man who, from the position of Class D Flunky, manages to subvert the system. The other somewhat better-known story here is the longest, "Abercrombie Station," notable for featuring an early prototype of the women in many later Vance stories: Jean Parlier, an orphan who murders her abusive foster father and ends up agreeing to marry a rich misfit on the title space station, a haven for obese people. Even though that story appeared in an earlier Best of Jack Vance collection, it has never been a favorite of mine, though as noted it does interestingly prefigure a certain type of Vance character.

As noted, a couple of the stories were new to me, one because it first appeared in an obscure mystery magazine. Vance of course wrote quite a few mystery novels, some outstanding, including an Edgar winner. "The Absent-Minded Professor" is a lesser work, but amusing, about murderous academic rivalry in a university astronomy department. The other new story is also sort of a crime story, "The Phantom Milkman," about a woman who comes to a remote cabin to escape her abusive husband, only to be confused by the mysterious milk that keeps being delivered, all the while concerned about her husband's attempts to find her. It's a definite departure for Vance, a good example of an early experiment for him.

The book also includes nine further stories, including the title piece, which is the first Magnus Ridolph story, "Hard-Luck Diggings," and hence introduces his first series character; and also such interesting work as "Where Hesperus Falls," "Shape-Up," and "The Masquerade on Dicantropus." As implied, little here besides "Dodkin's Job" and "DP!" is close to top-shelf Jack Vance, but the book is still quite worth the time of anyone who enjoys this master's work.