All the Myriad Ways

I bought the paperback in 1976, but I haven't kept track of how many times I've read each story since then. I've just now read the whole book, which I don't normally do, because as usual I like some stories more than others.“All the myriad ways”: Two stars, and that's generous. The title story is the one I like least: I neither enjoy it nor agree with it. But it's not quite bad enough for one star.“Passerby”: Three stars. An unlikely story, but not a bad one.“For a foggy night”: Four stars. Preposterous but delightful; I'm fond of this one.“Wait it out”: Two stars. Unlikely and not particularly entertaining.“The jigsaw man”: Two stars. First published in 1967, this was at the time a reasonable and interesting attempt to predict the future; but the prediction hasn't yet come true, and it's not particularly entertaining as a story.“Not long before the end”: Four stars. A fantasy story in which magic is found to be a non-renewable resource. A good idea and a nice story.“Man of steel/woman of Kleenex”: Three stars. A non-fiction but amusing discussion of Superman's unique and inevitable sexual problems.“The theory and practice of time travel”: Three stars. A quite interesting non-fiction essay.“Inconstant moon”: Four stars. A good story about a night when the moon was much brighter than usual, and what that may mean.“What can you say about chocolate covered manhole covers?”: Three stars. This is quite fun, but there isn't really much to it, beyond the central idea.“Becalmed in hell”: Two stars. This is the oldest story in the book, dating from 1965, and it shows. It reminds me of [a:Hal Clement 70180 Hal Clement https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1208188359p2/70180.jpg], although not at his best.