"Unbirthday Party" is an unpleasant story about a man trapped at a chaotic and faintly sinister party. "Baby, You Were Great" is a creepy story about the next step in entertainment. In "When the Moon Was Red", a mother watches her precocious child grow ever more stifled under her husband's overbearing "help." "Sirloin and White Wine" is the bittersweet tale of an old couple's last night in their family home. "Perchance to Dream" tells the story of a man who can't find a use for his precognition. In fact, it's more of a hindrance than a help. "How Many Miles to Babylon?" is the creepiest story in the book, and certainly the harshest. I didn't like "The Downstairs Room" much; it's basically just a retread of "The Yellow Wallpaper." "Countdown" is an intimate examination of the life and thoughts of one cog in the military/industrial complex. It's sad and terrible, and followed immediately by the amusing little "The Plausible Improbable," about the law of averages. In "The Feel of Desperation", a trapped wife fights against and then for the freedom her captor offers. Similarly, "A Time to Keep" is about one man's confrontation with his apathetic lifestyle. "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" is a twisted tale of beauty, reminiscent of the Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder." "The Planners" is disjointed story about intelligence, aggression, and the hierarchy of beings--I didn't like it much. The last story in the book, "Windsong," is about one scientist's struggle to create the ultimate battle machine--and what that means for his artistic ex-lover. ( )

This is an interesting collection from an interesting author. Despite the "and other speculative fiction" of the collection's title, few of these stories are science fiction, and while several focus on fantasies, I’m not at all sure that they are truly fantasy (not that there's anything wrong with that). These are ambiguous stories, stories where a word here and a word there tweak the tone in a way that substantially changes how you read them. Many probe issues around perception and reality – these characters are people who dream and fantasize, people who seem to have one foot on each side of the border between sanity and otherwise (in a way that even the most rational of us seem to do from time to time). The story notes were interesting and helpful, telling us more about the author’s approach to telling and understanding stories than offering the keys to interpretation. ( )