Contains:
Always before your voice / Richard Matheson --
Function of dream sleep / Harlan Ellison --
Wages of cynicism / Charles Beaumont --
Lone Star traveler / William F. Nolan --
People of the blue-green water / John Tomerlin --
C.O.D., corpse on delivery / Robert Bloch --
Way of a man with a maid / Ray Russell --
Hungry Alice / Jerry Sohl --
Wind blows free / Chad Oliver --
Different / Charles E. Fritch --
Man who was Slugger Malone / George Clayton Johnson --
Pilgrmiage / Ray Bradbury.

This is a collection of short stories by "The Group" which consists of:

Ray Bradbury
Richard Matheson
Harlan Ellison
Ray Russell
Charles Beaumont
George Clayton Johnson
Robert Bloch
John Tomerlin
Chad Oliver
Charles E. Fritch
William F. Nolan
Jerry Sohl

This collection has everything... Sci-Fi, horror, crime, fantasy, a western, and even a glimpse into the soul of a small town post-office worker... Sounds so innocent doesn't it?

I love this book... Each story comes with a mini-biography of its author. This is a quick read, considering that there are only 12 stories, but given who wrote them, its enough to keep you entertained. ( )

see http://www.sfsite.com/06a/cs105.htm ( )

The worst thing that can happen when trying to pay homage to an individual or group is for that effort to, instead, raise questions as to why they should be immortalized. Such is the problem with this collection.

The book represents an effort to show the talents of a group of writers who worked and grew there talent together in Hollywood during the 50s and 60s. The names are famous to anyone who knows television, movies, or science fiction – Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Chad Oliver, etc. etc. However, the conceit of the book is its downfall. Rather than present the best of these authors, it asks for new or unpublished writings. At its worst, this makes portions almost unreadable. “A character study that had failed to find a market” since 1954, and “a slight but charming story” are the introductions to two of the stories. How does anyone think that a story with that kind of introduction will celebrate any author’s abilities? Many of the new stories are slight and seem to show that many of the authors have passed their prime. And, at the lowest point of the entire book, a Ray Russell story that is actually (again I quote from the introduction) “excerpted from an unpublished novel-length manuscript.” A “story” that is absolutely nothing but three scenes brought together by editor narrative to try and tie them together.

Ray Bradbury writes as well as ever, but provides three pages that aren’t even story, just “a twist”. Okay stories from Robert Bloch (“C.O.D. – Corpse on Delivery” that represents what crime stories looked like in the 40’s) and Charles E. Fritch (“Different” that would have been perfectly place as a Twilight Zone episode). Also, a very good story from Chad Oliver (“The Wind Blows Free” which is really just another one of those “my gosh, they were on the ground all along” space stories.) Of interest, only one of those three – the Fritch – is recent, the other two reprints. The best of the book is Ellison’s “The Function of Dream Sleep”, an incredible story that starts with a nightmare and explores how we deal with death, loss, and grief. (And, as an aside, I want to note that I have only recently appreciated how great this story is. On first reading a number of years ago, I didn’t get it. Then I heard an audio version with Ellison doing the reading, and then I got it. Now, I see it as the classic it is.)

Bottom line, you can get the good stories somewhere else. So, shy of a desire to read generally mediocre output by good writers or the opportunity to read the introduction “California Sorcerers”, which is a decent essay on what “The Group” was, do not bother. ( )

Great just for the story of the California sorcerors, the group of writers including William Nolan, Richard Matheson, Beaumont, Ellison, who worked together writing stories for TV and for the science fiction magazines of the day. There's some classic stories in here too.