Perhaps I should have been more impressed, but, unfortunately, I saw little to differentiate Soukup from anyone else.

The most disappointing factor for me was my inability to connect with any of the characters in any way. In some instances it was just because they came across as flat, unsympathetic, their motivations unclear. A few stories had endings that just didn't merit the time for true understanding. And overall the writing wasn't particularly outstanding. There wasn't a line, an idea, that really struck me. That caught in my head and wouldn't leave.

After all the really outstanding reviews I've read for this book I was expecting to love it. But, at best, I thought it was mediocre. The only exceptional story was "The Story So Far"--that one lived up to the standards set by other reviewers. The style was fresh and it made me want to read on. Otherwise, I could have done without this particular collection.

I was a bit disappointed that "The Arbitrary Placement of Walls" did not contain two of Soukup's stories from 1996: "Sweet Bells Jangled" and "Waking Beauty." I could have forgone some of the early tales for those.

As it is, the volume contains nearly all of Soukup's fiction published through early 1996; only two of the three published in the chapbook "Rosemary's Brain" are omitted. Some of the stories seem to me oversimilar in tone and theme (and, yes, including "Sweet Bells Jangled" and "Waking Beauty" would have intensified this), but the overall quality is high. "The Story So Far" is indeed Soukup's best to date, with "Jones and the Stray" and the very funny "Good Girl, Bad Dog" also memorable.

"The Story So Far" is indeed superlative, but let's also not forget to mention that this collection includes the three stories that were nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula, not to mention the one that *won* the Nebula -- "A Defense of the Social Contracts" -- a beautiful piece of social extrapolation that first appeared in the magazine Science Fiction Age. It's a collection very worth having.