Review by Stuart Mayne

The Century Light, Century Rain, Eon, Eternal Light, Ilium, Last and First Men, Rendezvous with Rama, Ringworld, Stone, Tau Zero. Quite an impressive list don’t you think? Of course, evenings at the bar could be spent arguing the merits of this list or selecting perfectly acceptable replacements. No collection will ever suit every science fiction aficionado. But I’m all for publishers making lists, especially a publisher like Gollancz who has been brave enough to publish comprehensive collections of speculative fiction via their "Masterworks of …" collections. These series make it possible for the fan to access significant works that may have been out of print for decades.

Some book retailers have told me they hate the covers (simple black and white using a different paper theme on each book). Hmm, sounds weak; the physical book looks great to my eyes. Simple and clean.

The difficulty I find with these small collections, like the recent Ultimate Fantasies Sequence (from Gollancz again) is that they are small enough that a new fan might like to buy the entire series, but would be unable to find them together on the bookshop shelves as retailers list their shelves alphabetically by author. Publishers and book retailers need to get back on the same page when it comes to these important collections.