Not so much a 'best of', this colllection brought together some previously unreprinted short stories and some examples of first magazine publications of stories later reworked into novels. Sadly, it also brought to general attention some material such as Smith's late (1964) story 'The Imperial stars' which had been intended as the beginning of a new series before the author's comparatively early death. Other hands seized on this and sharecropped the story out of all recognition as the 'Family d'Alembert' series of novels, which could only really be said to have been based on a few notes EES sketched on the back of an envelope somewhere.

This anthology also includes an essay by Walter Gillings, a contemporary one by Smith himself, and a bibliography.

Smith's writing was of its time; his dialogue seems excruciating nowadays, but the story-telling and plotting itself stands up well. Smith does not deserve the cultural sneers directed against him by later generations of fans, as long as his work isn't held up as an exemplar of the best the genre can produce. The popularity of space opera as a sub-genre now, when re-invigorated by modern writers such as Iain Banks, Colin Greenland or Alastair Reynolds, bears out the appeal of mile-long spaceships, daring heroes and weird worlds. All together now: "Gosh wow oh boy oh boy oh boy..." ( )

Not really the "best of" at all, just a few nice bits for the completist. I'm a huge fan, so I even liked the lamer stories in this one. If you've never read Smith, read Grey Lensman and if you like that, do the rest of the Lensman series in order. ( )