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My primary motivation for writing this reviewing is that the book is actually flawed. The edition I have, which has the same cover as that displayed here, has been very poorly edited. There are numerous examples of misplaced punctuation, as well as lack of breaks between dialogue between two characters, etc.
I have never seen a book with so many obvious errors; the publishers really ought to fix it. (One almost suspects the typesetting was done with voice recognition software to save money, but without adequate follow-up editing.)
Sadly, much of this book hasn't been reprinted because it isn't very good. Several stories(and the bulk of the text) are made up of Bester's early attempts at science fiction from the 1940s, which don't stand up in comparison to his great work of the 1950s. I think that these stories deserve to be reprinted, but will appeal mainly to Bester fanatics. As one myself, I feel that ideally all of his stories from this first stint with science fiction should have been collected in a single, complete volume. Its good to see some, but this isn't what I was hoping for.
The balance of the text is made up of essays and interviews, many that I've seen before. Some good, some not so good.
For the casual Bester reader, this is not the volume you're looking for. For the really serious reader, this isn't it either--although the best you'll find available.
