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The celebration of the mainstay of the genre has gathered the finest stories from the magazine's past six years, including works by Fritz Leiber, Harlan Ellison, John Morressy, James Tiptree, Jr., and Ursula K. Le Guin

October 1949 saw the launching of The Magazine of Fantasy (the name was changed to Fantasy & Science Fiction with the second issue), which quickly established itself as the premier journal of literary SF and fantasy and has maintained that position for 40 years under five editors. This is the 25th ``best of'' volume, the first in six years, and it's a knockout. Fritz Leiber has contributed a beautifully written adventure of Gummitch the intelligent cat, this time in an encounter with a veterinarian who turns out to be a witch (``The Cat Hotel''). ``Judgment Call'' by John Kessel is an eerie, evocative tale of a minor-league ballplayer who gets a needed lesson in humility from an alien creature passing as a beautiful bar pickup. George Alec Effinger's ``The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything '' is an amusing shaggy-doggish story of a benevolent invasion of Earth. Damon Knight's ``The God Box'' is a gemlike short-short of instant nirvana, and ``Salvador'' is one of Lucius Shepard's better political fictions set in Central America. Harlan Ellison has contributed an interesting introduction. (Oct.) Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information.

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October 1949 saw the launching of The Magazine of Fantasy (the name was changed to Fantasy & Science Fiction with the second issue), which quickly established itself as the premier journal of literary SF and fantasy and has maintained that position for 40 years under five editors. This is the 25th ``best of'' volume, the first in six years, and it's a knockout. Fritz Leiber has contributed a beautifully written adventure of Gummitch the intelligent cat, this time in an encounter with a veterinarian who turns out to be a witch (``The Cat Hotel''). ``Judgment Call'' by John Kessel is an eerie, evocative tale of a minor-league ballplayer who gets a needed lesson in humility from an alien creature passing as a beautiful bar pickup. George Alec Effinger's ``The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything '' is an amusing shaggy-doggish story of a benevolent invasion of Earth. Damon Knight's ``The God Box'' is a gemlike short-short of instant nirvana, and ``Salvador'' is one of Lucius Shepard's better political fictions set in Central America. Harlan Ellison has contributed an interesting introduction. (Oct.) Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information.