3 out of 5

There’s a quote on the front cover of this collection that suggests there’s not a dud in the batch.  …Which, yes, I’d agree with: there’s not a single story that I retched whilst reading through.  However, there also were no stand-up-and-cheer all-stars.  A couple of entries were better than others – Jim Rugg’s / Brian Maruca’s golfing hero is pretty goofy, and Adam Gallardo’s cowboy tale is very concise, and effective –  but otherwise this thing is thoroughly even-keeled from start to finish.  One thing I wasn’t keen on was the decision to feature all the longer tales at the end, which sort of upset the pacing – and the stories are all rather wordy things – but there’s at least notable skill behind each one (Dean Motter, Darick Robertson, Guy Davis), so you can sort of fall back on that while you’re leafing through their pages.