I picked up this collection after Jay critiqued a story of mine at Potlatch and then said "hi" and gave me some compliments on the story at Norwescon. It's a collection of 16 stories divided into four sections: Ghosts, Angels, Gods and Aliens.

These stories are all set in South Central Texas and, since I grew up in San Antonio, I am very familiar with the setting. I went to a small private school in San Antonio and played basketball, so we had to travel to the little country/farming towns around San Antonio in order to find opponents who wouldn't beat the poop out of us. I remember driving to many of the places and roads mentioned in the stories.

My favorite stories were "The Oxygen Man" (in a future of very bad air, a young boy makes a deal with the man who brings the family oxygen); "Twilight of the Odd" (a simple, his friends, and a special egg help save their town from marauders during a flood); and "Hitching to Aurora" (a guy driving on a long, lonely road - there's a lot of those in Texas - picks up a very special hitchhiker who helps him when the loan shark comes to call).

There were many other stories that I enjoyed as well (pretty much all of them). I'd definitely recommend the collection.