Recommended? Yes! But with reservations. My opinion, but not all the short fiction in this collection is 'great'. There's a bit of the naff here too, but it is Mr. Silverberg's choices. Of particular interest is his after thoughts following each entry. The loss of stars, two, is mainly because of the pretentions attached to the present title. This in no way would make a decent introduction to this area of short fiction, or to its criticism, or to its writing... As to the later, guiding the writer in you, no to that too, though Silverberg's views are of interest, a writer commenting on the writing of others in his chosen genre. It is very Silverberg-centric in its notions of the form. Taken as such, without any other expectations, and you won't be disappointed. A useful critic or an informed and inspiring teacher he ain't, at least not by this book. However, that aside, I enjoyed the read, both the fiction and his commentary.
Some very important and influential writers are completely absent from this compilation, large and small, too many to list, and some that would be better in this book than those few naff ones that Mr. Silverberg chose to include. To mention a few of the well known, there's nothing here by Clark, Heinlein, Azimov, Bradbury, etc., etc., etc. What were Silverberg's reason for passing these over, who knows ~ substance for the imagination?
3 stars for a 'good' and 'interesting' read.
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