This book was a big disappointment to me, primarily because I went in with great expectations. I have read the third book in the series and remember it being quite good. Such is not the case here. Instead, what we see are the developmental works of a number of authors learning to stretch their wings. That is not necessarily a bad thing, and definitely fits in with the concepts of the Clarion Workshop. But these are stories that, while nice, are just not ready for prime time. Oh, it’s interesting seeing some of the first efforts of soon-to-be greats like Vonda McIntyre or Octavia Butler or Ed Bryant or George Alec Effinger, but it’s not really worth the price of admission.

But there is some redemption. Interwoven with these fledgling stories are essays by the top of the craft. That means you can read the thoughts of Delany and Ellison and Knight and Leiber and Pohl and Wilhelm on various subjects that (sometimes very tangentially) relate to writing. These are almost uniformly as good as the stories are mediocre. Which means that, if nothing else, the book is worth the read for these essays. However, that isn’t really enough to make it worth going out of your way to find the collection ( )

ISFDB 7271.