The premise for this book is something I’ve often thought about. There is so much science fiction out there, what gems have been overlooked. There is a story out there (I’m guessing late 70’s/early 80’s) published in F&SF, that I still remember as thinking, “This is an award winner. They won’t be able to pass it up.” It wasn’t, and they passed it off, and it now is only a vague memory. But I’d love to see it again to see if I was right. All I remember is the shock of first contact by extra-terrestrials, and them taking all the children back with them. (Honest, at the time it didn’t remind me of Clarke.) I remember tearing up at the end. However, maybe it just struck me right at the time. Maybe no one else felt that way. {Sigh}

And this book may well exhibit that problem. Memory is usually better than reality. This is a nice collection. If it was a magazine, I’d say they did a very good job that month – or maybe a best of for the year (for a magazine.) But expectations are higher for book collection. Actually, the whole thing starts out bad. The first two stories were nice, but it felt they were included more for name recognition (Lewis Padgett and Walter M. Miller, Jr.) than top quality. Even worse, the introduction to the Miller included “The present entry is not his best…” Boy, that makes me want to read on. However, the stories begin to pick up, so there are a number of tales worth reading that (because of the premise of the book) you probably haven’t seen before. Because a lot of the work is drawn from the 40’s and 50’s (and only one from the 70’s), this feels like an older collection. However, they are still good stories, and that resonance to another age is not a bad thing. “Beast in the House” (Michael Sharr) should make anyone shiver and “Unwillingly to School” (Pauline Ashwell) is an incredible start to a journey that was, apparently, continued in a few more short stories, then taken no further. The story is good, but the writing – taking on the style of a rural speaker – is done so well that you still feel the flavor of the speech pattern, but read it as if it were your own. There are a few clinkers – hey, what good is a short story collection without a couple of stories where you ask, “And they included this one because….?” But good reading throughout. It is a collection of hidden silver – just don’t expect diamonds. ( )