This book is mostly fascinating as a window into a certain era of sci-fi/fantasy fandom, and you'll get more out of it if you already know at least a little of the background. Even having some awareness of fandom history, I still found some parts of the book impenetrable; I suspect anyone going in totally blind, as it were, might find more of it incomprehensible than not. (Though some things can be looked up online as you encounter them--http://fancyclopedia.org/ might be of help.) That said, there are essays here that are still relevant, some on very specifically fandom-related topics (such as what makes someone a BNF and those people who loudly declare that they are leaving fandom because they've Grown Up and realized it was a Childish Hobby) and some on more general pop-culture topics (I found his article jabbing at TV cliches still more accurate than not, and then there's the one on bad film adaptations of sf novels, which is a problem we will probably always be plagued with).

All in all, a solid read for anyone who is interested in the state of fandom in the 1930s-1950s--all the essays included seem to have been written in the '50s, but Bloch was already a fandom veteran by then and some of the essays go into some depth on the way things used to be and how they've changed. (I say "seem to" because the book leaves the essays undated; I did find this a bit frustrating, as knowing what year they were published or even what order they were written in would help with understanding the context.)

There is some period-typical sexism, mainly in terms of assuming the Default Fan is male and women interested in sff are rare and sexy unicorns, but overall for something written by a white middle-class guy in the 1950s, I'd say it's better than average on not being a dick about marginalized people in general. ( )