A collection of Vance's early short stories, including Planet of the Black Dust (1945), Four Hundred Blackbirds (1948), Dead Ahead (1949), The Enchanted Princess (1949), The Potters of Firsk (1949), The Visitors (1950), The Uninhibited Robot (1950), Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater (1951), Three-Legged Joe (1951), Sabotage on Sulfur Planet (1952), Sjambak (1952), Parapsyche (1957), and Sail 25 (1961).