A collection of Vance's early short stories, including The World Thinker (1944), I'll Build Your Dream Castle (1946), The God and the Temple Robber (1946), Men of the Ten Books (1949), Seven Exits from Bocz (1949), Telek (1951), The Secret (1951), Noise (1952), D.P. (1951), The Absent Minded Professor (1953), The Devil on Salvation Bluff (1954), The Phantom Milkman (1955), Where Hesperus Falls (1955), A Practical Man's Guide (1956), and The House Lords (1956).