Despite the anthology's title, it actually gathers together pieces originally published during a two-year period, 1973 and 1974.

[1] The book collects eleven novelettes and short stories by various fantasy authors deemed by the editor the best to be published during the period represented, together with an introductory survey of the year in fantasy, an essay on the year's best fantasy books, and introductory notes to the individual stories by the editor.

The pieces include posthumously published works (the stories by Howard and Bok), and a "posthumous collaboration" (the story by Smith and Carter).

The anthology was reviewed by Judy Rosenbaum in The Science Fiction Review Monthly, October 1975, Chris Marler in Astral Dimensions #2, Winter 1975-1976, Richard Delap Delap's F & SF Review, January 1976, Frank Denton in The Diversifier #13 March 1976, and (in German) Hermann Urbanek in SF Perry Rhodan Magazin, April 1981, and Michael Adrian in Das Geheimnis der Taggari, 1981.

This article about a collection of fantasy short stories published in the 1970s is a stub.