The twenty stories in this collection span five decades of writing and include some of the most well-known names in science fiction and fantasy. The stories' settings vary widely, from contemporary America to fantastical places of long ago and far away, and we see many definitions and interpretations of what magic is. Katherine Kurtz's The Summoning connects magic to the American Revolution, while Robert Silverberg's As Is takes us to the late twentieth-century America, where even cars can be magical. Orson Scott Card's The Princess and the Bear, on the other hand, is a fairy tale set in a never-never land complete with a good king and an evil one, a willful princess and a magical stranger. Many of the stories feature young people facing challenges--like Mercedes Lackey's Rune, a girl who wants to become a bard in Fiddler Fair. The stories vary in length from short-shorts to novellas; likewise, they vary in quality: some of them are formulaic and trite, with tired writing. Some are masterful, thoughtful gems with ideas and images that resonate long after they are finished: among these are Ray Bradbury's The Vacation, Zenna Henderson's The Anything Box, and Ursula K. LeGuin's The Spell of Unbinding. The collection is worth owning for these last three stories alone, particularly if a new generation of readers is introduced to Henderson's hard to find work. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Will appeal with pushing, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).