* Readers of a scientific turn of mind may be flabbergasted by some scenes in these stories (I'm thinking particularly of the the ape's helium respirator in "The Ape Box Affair" and Bernard Wilkins' ether bunnies in "The Better Boy"), but don't let that stop you reading them anyway. Unless you're a fanatical Blaylock collector, it's unlikely you've read all or even many of these stories. Some, such as "Red Planet" and "The Pink of Fading Neon" seem to simply be dipping into a world of lunacy, while another old story of the same era, The "Ape-Box Affair", relates an hilarious misadventure of Langdon St. Ives, who would reappear later in "Two Views of a Cave Painting", "The Idol's Eye" and the novels Lord Kelvin's Machine and Homunculus. Throughout the collection we meet characters who pull away, intentionally or not, the curtain of the everyday world, revealing the leering, capering dwarf in a funny hat just outside the window who cocks a snook and scuttles off. As with most of Blaylock's stories, this collection is full of strange powers; obsessions, magical objects, and characters whose quirky perspectives sometimes plunge them into chaos or set them on the road to adventure.