Not sure why it took me so long to tick off my final Pynchon. The man himself enumerates the problems with these early efforts in his introduction, written 25 years later. But there's still much to admire and it's fascinating to see Pynchon's writing in utero. My favourite piece is probably the last, The Secret Integration. Still, the progression in just a couple of years from these uncertain efforts to the masterpiece that is V. beggars belief. ( )

These stories are not very good. The introduction is delightful, though, and overall I'm glad I read it. It's nice to know that Pynchon honed his craft the same way anyone else has to: Writing a whole bunch of mediocre shit and hacking through it to find a voice. ( )

'Lowlands and 'The Secret Integration' were really good but the subject matter of the others didn't interest me much. ( )

A great place top begin with this intimidating author. "The Secret Integration" is fantastic. ( )

This was an interesting collection of early short stories by Thomas Pynchon. Though some of the stories were much better than others (I particularly liked "The Secret Integration" and "Low-lands") the introduction is the real gem of this collection. The introduction alone (which by itself I would give 4 stars) is worth the price of a used copy of this book. Pynchon is usually very guarded when it comes to interviews or any public contact so it was a nice surprise to find him so candid and generous here. He writes very honestly about what he thinks of each of these stories and where he thought they fit into his overall learning curve as a writer.

I recommend this collection to fans of Pynchon's novels or practicing writers. ( )