This was the first collection of Robert Silverberg's short stories to be published. The stories were written early in his career, from 1954-1957 and the author explains in the introduction to my 1977 edition that he originally wanted a collection of 10 stories from the period but was only able to choose five of them for the first publication in 1962. He's especially proud of the four shorter stories and I can see why because to me they are a step higher in quality than the usual stories of the period and certainly stand the test of time to still be enjoyable despite obviously being from another time. These originally appeared in various magazines of the era.

Slaves of the Star Giants • novella
The Songs of Summer • shortstory
Hopper • novelette
Blaze of Glory • shortstory
Warm Man • shortstory

I don't think any of these stories would knock your socks off, but I enjoyed each one. The Star Giants novella has a good opening sequence to start this small collection of stories. It is the only 'adventure' story here - the others are more thoughtful pieces. Two of the stories involve a man being transported far into a post-apocalyptic future - with no scientific (or any) explanation of how this transport happened. The stories were long on storytelling, very short on science. And that was fine. ( )