This is a moderately impressive anthology whose purpose, it appears, is not to illustrate the long, tortured history of Amazing Stories (since, after all, no stories are included in the book published during the magazine’s nadir, 1940-1953, as the introduction carefully points out), but to show, I guess, how wonderful and innovative Amazing Stories is—so rush out and subscribe today, today, today!

Anyway. It has a good selection of stories, on the whole, including Asimov’s own "What Is This Thing Called Love?", Eando Binder’s strangely neglected "I, Robot", and a buncha others which are generally OK and sometimes very good.

So does it fulfill its purpose? I'm not sure. I don’t even know if Amazing Stories still exists (although I'm reasonably sure it does), and although I have, in fact, purchased a number of copies over the years, I’ve never subscribed, nor does reading this book make me particularly want to. It’s an OK anthology, but somehow seems vaguely pointless, all things considered. Still, the stories are usually pretty good, so I suppose it’s worthwhile as an afternoon read, if nothing else.