Mixed feelings

There's some science fiction in this collection, like an elegiac view of a top secret research project and a wonderfully sour story of a pitcher who throws the whole sport of baseball a curve; some fantasy like a calculatedly pathetic tale of our favorite storybook animals snuffed out by war and pollution; plus various unclassifiables like the story of a poet on the road who discovers America's secret artists and one of a science fiction writer caught by a force field in Gremmage, Pennsylvania. Effinger's involution sometimes cloys but his talent is unmistakable.<br/><br/>Kirkus Reviews