This is another example of a bizarre (for Arkham House) but excellent Arkham House collection from the 1990s. The stories run the gamut from detective fiction to just plain fiction, to light science fiction, but are uniformly excellent and the whole book is a marvelous read.

I don't know if Jim Turner was trying to move Arkham House to a more mainstream small press publisher or more sci fi, or if he was just seeing excellent authors that didn't have a story collection and others that were were relatively unknown. The horror genre in general went through a decline in the 80s and early 90s so there may not have been a lot of good material to make whole collections out of. Arkham House did have a history of publishing, later to become famous authors', first story collections; for instance Ray Bradbury.

Arkham House suffered a noticeable decline after Turner left, with April Derleth not doing much except keeping the doors open; lots of second and third rate releases and retreads. I would say Arkham House's days as a leading small press publisher are probably long gone. Many others have left it far behind. However, a good editor could kick it in the ass and make it once again known as a quality brand since it still has the legacy of being a pioneering and great small press specialty genre publisher. ( )