Showcasing a wide range of styles, this collection from Williams (
The Dragonbone Chair;
The Dirty Streets of Heaven) covers both the traditional fantasies with which he made his name ("The Stranger's Hands"), dark urban fantasy ("The Storm Door"), a horror screenplay ("Black Sunshine"), and even an sf story or two ("Not with a Whimper Either"). The author knows the tropes of his genres well enough to have fun with them, such as with the fantasy piece about a long con, "The Old Scale Game."
VERDICT These 17 tales have appeared mostly in other anthologies, although some were very small print runs and had limited availability. As a career retrospective, the book definitely shows the author's versatility, and interest in Williams will be higher after he announced in April that he is writing a sequel to his most popular series, "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn."
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