This volume is a collection of stories that Moorcock wrote and which originally appeared in SF journals that he either contributed to or edited at some point in the late 1950's to mid 1960's. Most of the stories are quite short. There are also four essays written by Moorcock and offer explanations or history behind Elric and Jerry Cornelius.

The primary character contained in these writings is Sojan - a mercenary warrior who always ends up at the right place at the right time. This pretty much has to be the case when you consider the limited amount of space available to any particular story in an SF journal.

For me, though, the most entertaining piece in the collection is one of the shortest - The Stone Thing. At first I was appalled by the hero - with not only a named sword and bow, but also individually named arrows. And he had lost both hands and had them replaced (Corum-style) with other hands. And he lost both eyes and had THEM replaced with jewels. But it was the Stone Thing that caused him the most problems. I won't say anymore so as to not spoil the Twilight Zone-like ending of the story. ( )