Nelson Bond is a wizard at creating bizarre, unusual story lines which excel in the unexpected, and his original stories comprising Far Side Of Nowhere, provide some unusual scenarios; from supernatural forces to wizards and magic. Romances, inventions, intrigue: all the stuff of thrilling fantasy and ordinary individuals caught in unbelievable worlds comes to life.

The Far Side Of Nowhere is an impressively presented anthology of the sometimes bizarrely twisted, sometimes darkly imaged, and always captivating fantasy and science fiction stories of Nelson Bond. A master at skewing reality just enough to see a mirror glimpse of the secret dreams that lie beneath the humdrum, ordinary surface of daily life, Bond is a demonstrably talented writer who has clearly mastered the storytelling craft. Ranging in mood from horror to heroic fantasy, these stories are as evocative and engaging as they are striking and memorable.

Long out of print and never available in mass-market paperback, this book collects 13 of Bond's best stories, most of them science-fantasy. My particular favorites are "Pilgrimage" and "The Sportsman", a low-key but effective story about a riding club. Bond is a masterful story-teller, with a subtle and definite wit.

If you are a fan of Jack Finney or Ray Bradbury, you will probably enjoy this book very much. I am and I certainly enjoyed some of the stories I remember that are contained in this volume!

It's been a few years since I read Mr. Bond's work, but having a request for this title at our library brought back memories of some of the short stories it contains. While time has dimmed details of some of the tales I recognized, a few of them have remained with me.

"The Magic Staircase," a classic time-travel story, stayed with me over the years. It will change the way you walk up a staircase for the rest of your life -- or at least what you think of as you do so!

The stories "Johnny Cartwright's Camera" and the title story "Mr. Mergenthwirker's Lobblies" also deal with the bending of or intersecting with the time continuum in some way that touches the characters lives and sends a chill or two up the reader's spine!

I would highly recommend this book of short stories, based on the ones I have read and remembered, to both fiction and science fiction/fantasy readers.