The set up here is that each contributing author has a short narrative to begin, and they must finish the story from there - the given narrative has a character going into a government administered euthanasia center and accepts his fate. But what fate? The best of the stories comes from [[Poul Anderson]], a surprise for me because I haven't otherwise enjoyed his work. Anderson takes the character through multiple, ever-changing iterations of an after-life - the purpose, to learn from these varying waters how to keep the destabilizing world on track. [[Harlan Ellison]]'s take was near undigestible altogether. The other three were passable, if a little strained for working too hard at the tasking. On balance, I expected more from these luminaries.

2 bones!! ( )

An interesting contest as Keith Laumer, Ellison,Pohl Anderson, Gordon Dickson, & Frank Herbert finish a short story in their different fashions. It is entertaining but I can't do spoilers, what's the fun otherwise? ( )

Well-written, imaginative, intelligent, sure. Careful readers will be rewarded.

However, none of the stories meant anything to me - and I got a vibe as if the authors were competing to see just how weird they could get. I mean, if the concept is weird, does the writing have to be, too? It seems like that just makes more unnecessary work for the reader. Ah, but paging through the book again, I see that none of the concepts were outrageously creative - so maybe the writing style is key.

Welp, I never was a fan of the SF of this era anyway. If you are, and you live in the US, I'd be glad to ship this book to you (free). ( )

What happens after death? Some of the best sci-fi writers of the 70's come together to explore some possibilities. Ellison is uniquely theologically bold. I enjoyed all the others, too. Probably a special appeal for me because this all comes from an era when I was first discovering science fiction. ( )

A man dies in the gray anonymity of a Euthanasia Center. This is the prologue; in the rest of the book, five writers take up the why and the what next.

Two of the five stories are disappointing. Anderson takes up the obvious dystopian tone of the prologue in the heavy-handed and mostly mediore "The Fatal Fulfillment". Dickinson, in "Maverick", pretty much ignores the prologue to write a dull combat-based adventure/drama.

The other three are very good or better. Laumer's "Of Death What Dreams" depicts a regimented future society which, though not particularly original, is rendered vividly, and makes for an exciting story. Ellison's "The Region Between" expands its horizons to deal with an entire universe, one populated by marvelously imaginative species that, in another writer's hands, would each have been the material for an entire book. (Ellison's story also features the best use of creative punctuation I've ever seen.) And Herbert, in the short but brilliant "Murder Will In", explores the nature of consciousness through the fascinating and mind-expanding perspective of a mental parasite. ( )