Weighing in at more than 300,000 words, spread across nearly 850 pages, this book brings together fourteen stories and novellas, three of which (“Aztechs,” “The Last Time,” and “Ariel”) have never been previously collected.

The volume opens with “A Traveler’s Tale,” an account of the horrors that attend the creation of a small community of outcasts on the coast of Honduras. It ends with “Dog-Eared Paperback of My Life,” a surreal account of a journey up the Mekong River, a journey that moves through multiple interpenetrating realities.

The novella “Barnacle Bill the Spacer” is an account of mutiny in deep space. “Jailbait” recounts the relationship between two lost souls adrift in the world of the hobo jungles. In “Ariel,” alien incursions and quantum physics merge in a tale of love, memory, and obsession. “Human History” posits a remote, low-tech future in which the human race is subordinate to the all-powerful Captains. “Crocodile Rock” is a tale of murder and impossible transformations set in Africa. In “Liar’s House,” Shepard adds a chapter to the world of the Dragon Griaule.