The Avram Davidson Treasury: A Tribute Collection

Avram Davidson was widely regarded as one of the most outstanding authors of short fantasy fiction in our time. Now his estate and his friends have brought together a definitive collection of his finest work, each story introduced by an SF luminary: writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Poul Anderson, Gene Wolfe, Guy Davenport, Peter S. Beagle, Gregory Benford, Alan Dean Foster, Thomas M. Disch, and dozens of others. This is a volume every lover of 20th-century fantasy will need to own.

Containing 38 of Davidson's best pieces of short fiction and story-introductory tributes to him by nearly that many of his colleagues, this is necessarily a stout volume. Since Davidson possessed a willingness to listen only to his muse and an almost stereotypical lack of business sense, much of his work was out of print before his death in 1993. For readers who may not have heard of any of the stories herein except "Or All the Seas with Oysters" and "Manatee Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight?" this book contains revelations. It is a safe bet that it will be a pleasure to almost all readers, even if no two of them end up with the same listing of favorite stories. Davidson had one of the most original imaginations in the history of American sf and fantasy--genres he did not worry much about distinguishing from each other--and deserves to be enjoyed by generations of ordinary readers rather than left to the dubious mercy of sf academics. Roland Green