Tastes being as subjective as they are, I can't claim that these are the best science fiction stories of the last four decades, but certainly it is safe to say that they are among the best, at the very least. There is not a story in this book that i wouldn't buy today, if it were somehow crossing my desk for the first time, not even the oldest story here, which will be thirty-eight years old by the time you read these words. Long years from now, long after everyone in this anthology or involved with it have gone to dust, the stories here may still touch someone, and cause that person touched to blink, and put the book down for a second, and stare off through the hollow air, and shiver in wonder.