is best remembered today. The publishers of the current volume added Wyndham’s first published work, The Curse of the Burdens, written in 1927 (when the author was 24) under the pen name John B. Harris. (Wyndham’s birth name was John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. The 1954 short story collection titled Jizzle is long out of print, as is Burdens, originally issued as a pulp paperback (and now in the public domain).

The short stories in the current collection are much better than Burdens. Most would be considered fantasy, with heavy doses of the supernatural. The author shows a dark sense of humor in almost all the stories, but, ironically, those that are the most comic are the weakest. My favorite story was “More Spinned Against.” As the title suggests, the story involves spiders or, more precisely, one particular spider. The main character, Lydia Charters, is a middle-aged housewife married to a man whose passion in life is collecting spiders. His latest acquisition is most unusual. As soon as I read about the hubby’s hobby, I knew the story wouldn’t end well, and it didn’t. However, the twist ending completely surprised me.

Another bizarre fantasy is “A Present from Brunswick.” The titular present is a recorder (a flutelike instrument) that a small-town woman receives from her son. When she plays it, the town’s reaction leads everyone to believe the recorder initially came from another small village, Hamelin, hundreds of years earlier. The current collection’s title story, “Technical Slip,” is a high-tech variation on the classic theme of selling one’s soul to the devil. Here, Satan isn’t interested in souls, but, instead, the lion’s share of the money wealthy dying people like Robert Finnerson accumulated over the years. In return, Finnerson goes back to his youth. As anyone who has read this type of story knows, things don’t work out how Finnerson hoped. But they also don’t work out the way the devil intended, since a technical slip occurred in granting Finnerson’s last wish.

Two of the better stories in Technical Slip have no fantasy elements in them. “The Wheel” is a cautionary science fiction tale in which a primitive society considers the wheel the world’s most evil object. As readers discover, the reason for that belief is quite logical. “Affair of the Heart” is a highly unusual romance. A man and woman have dined at the same French restaurant on the same date for over thirty years. This year, something shockingly different occurs. I can’t reveal any more details without spoiling the ending, but I could easily visualize this as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. “Jizzle” was adapted into a Hitchcock episode, although the story changed significantly. The title creature is a monkey who can create detailed artwork from scratch. However, the monkey’s creations prove to be rather embarrassing (or worse) for its models.

The Curse of the Burdens is the longest work in the collection, taking up one-third of the book. It’s a traditional mystery involving the suspicious deaths of two members of the Burden family, which owned a sizable country estate. The story jumps between characters a lot and is hard to follow at times. The eventual solution to the mystery isn’t very interesting either. Wyndham never acknowledged Burdens as his work during his lifetime, and it’s easy to see why. The book is a work of an author who’s still learning his craft. Wyndham then wrote (but never published) several mysteries after Burdens before turning to science fiction in the early 1930s. Based on Burdens, he made the right decision.

I liked about three-quarters of the short stories in the collection, with the others being worthy efforts rather than complete failures. The Curse of the Burdens is by far the weakest selection in the book and is worthwhile for Wyndham completists only. The other stories provide a wide variety of entertainment, surprises, and a few chuckles. Fans of the 1940s and 50s pulp magazines will enjoy these selections from one of the better authors in the genre.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.