Overall, this a good collection of stories whose quality is well above the average. Most are also still a refreshingly good read 37 years after their first publication with less datedness than is sometimes the case.

Theodore Sturgeon's "Occam's Scalpel" is a particularly impressive story with more than one unexpected twist and with some interesting ideas about solving environmental problems.

Larry Niven's "The Fourth Profession" is an original story about alien contact on earth, in a bar, involving a few pills along the way, and some unexpected results. But it is one of those "the aliens might be smart, but darn it, us humans'll outsmart 'em" stories which I'm not so keen on. But the ideas and the writing make up for much of that.

Joanna Russ's "Gleepsite" is a strange fragment of a story which only hints at the world in which it is set, in which alluring dreams are sold for reasons we can only guess at to shy, middle-aged women.

"The Bear With The Knot On His Tail" was for me a more mixed story, but with a moving central idea of a race, knowing it faces imminent doom, wanting to ensure its memory and culture lives on - wanting to know that someone else knew that they existed.

"The Sharks of Pentreath" is a beautiful and bitter-sweet story about future tourism that at first seems very familiar but ends with unexpected sadness.

"A little knowledge" sees some frankly unpleasant humans get their come-uppance from some idealistic aliens.

"Real-time world" is a gem, but bleak. A story about observed and observers which is PK Dick-like in its layers of reality and unreality and doubt about all of them.

R.A. Lafferty's "All pieces of a river shore" is a sterling example of what I've always enjoyed about Lafferty's short stories. A whimsical execution of a tale about a collector of stuff which leads up to an utterly unexpected and original idea.

"With friends like these" is light and humourous in tone, with aliens desperate to overcome a foe and unleashing something that might be even worse to do so.

in "Aunt Jennie's Tonic" the elixir of life is found and lost - as it must be in tales like this.

"Timestorm" starts with a very different take on time travel and historical interference and ends with philosophical musing on the necessity of evil.

"Transit of earth" is a simple story about the sad ending of an expedition to Mars which leaves many of those on it dead.

"Gehenna" is the only really weak story in the collection for me. A simple tale is told from four viewpoints, each seeing a different reality. But I can't quite see the point.

"One life, furnished in early poverty" is Harlan Ellison in a different mood from many of the stories of his I've read. Another speculation on time travel and interfering with the past, this time one's own. ( )