This collection of five tales shows Christopher Priest is as accomplished a writer of short fiction as he is at writing novel length pieces. The stories fit the length, requiring no more to be told, and not suffering from excess padding - this is good writing stripped down to the minimum requirements.

There are two tales that are the class of the set. The first, the title story 'An Infinite Summer' tells of two young lovers in Victorian England who are removed from time in between steps, and become invisible to all around them. When Thomas awakens but not Sarah, he believes she is trapped and seperated from him for all of time, but still he visits her frozen form to look upon her.

The third tale in the book 'Palely Loitering' is a step up from the opener's high standard. In Flux Channel Park there are two bridges. Walking across one will mean you move one day into the past, the other one day into the future. 10 year old Mykle visits the park with his family, but instead of just walking across the bridge to the following day he leaps of the bridge and is transported to another time.

These five tales show great imagination and high writing skill on the part of Mr. Priest. I've known some authors who are extremely good novelists but who do not take to shorter fiction, and others were the opposite is true - but in this collection Christopher Priest has proven he is equally skilled in both forms. This is the third of his books I've read, all in the last six months, why didn't I discover this author earlier?