I bit of a let down. I know it is a .5 volume, but after the ending of 8 we need 9!
Books of shorts almost never hit home runs with every story, and that is often so subjective based on who you like or are interested in learning about more than how good or bad the story itself is. This book of side stories is not bad. But it really didn't give me any great pleasure in reading it, especially for the one story I could totally have done without.
If you're a Tomozaki fan I'd suggest you do read it and I hope you take more away from it than I did. Sounds like I'm really down on it, but it isn't that bad and Tomozaki in general is a great series, so that always helps.
As good as the other novels. We get some back story on Hinami, still the most mysterious character. And a VR-RPG story adapted from a drama cd. The story is definitely getting set for some big developments.