These short stories are probably the most surreal and simultaneously grounded stories in the collections. I especially enjoyed Under Old Earth, but probably not for normal reasons. Bongo drums connected to an unlimited energy source from strange distant planets... seriously? I feel like this was a 60's B Movie sci-fi, and yet it worked and it worked. Of course it was part of the greater fictional body of his worldbuilding, and that, more than anything impressed me the most. Self-consistency, even in the face of such huge strangeness. Well, hell, should I remember a Planet named Shaol? Just wow.