This book is a companion to Baker’s dozen: Thirteen short fantasy novels, and it has an advantage over that earlier anthology of containing several worthwhile stories. And yet--

It does have stories that I cannot stand (e.g., Philip José Farmer’s "Alley Man"), stories that I don’t particularly care for (Lester del Rey’s "For I am a Jealous People!", Robert Silverberg’s "The Desert of Stolen Dreams"), and stories that are good but from the perspective of anthologies edited by Asimov overexposed (John Campbell’s "Who Goes There?").

And in many places, the choices are just odd. Asimov’s own "Profession" is a story that I like very much—but why "Profession" over the much better "The Dead Past"? Niven’s "Flash Crowd" is an interesting look at the potential impact of teleportation, but as a story it’s rather weak. A much better story along the same lines is his "Cloak of Anarchy" (found in Tin Stars). (Similarly, David Drake’s "Time Safari" suffers for me from the fact that it isn’t the ultimate dinosaur hunting story, Bradbury’s "Sound of Thunder".)

One more note. There is a certain irony to the fact that Asimov in his introduction discusses the novella as a literary form, and revels in the fact that it gives the writer the chance to incorporate some of the complexity of a novel into a shorter form, e.g., greater characterization, subplots, and so on. Yet few of the stories actually in this anthology illustrate his thesis. "Profession", "Who Goes There?" and "Flash Crowd" are very weak on characterization, for example. Few of the stories have anything other than a single, linear plot.

Moreover, Asimov waxes eloquent over the fact that sf as a genre has an unusual number of really, really good novellas. This makes this generally weak anthology, then, all the more disappointing.

If you want a better survey of the good stories sf has to offer in the novella length, reread the Hugo winners series or the Mammoth anthologies. Skip this book.