The bulk of this book, nearly two thirds of it, is taken up with the story of the ironically named Cugel the Clever. A tale of fast acting karma in which Cugel's selfish actions to get out of his current predicament merely lead him to his next set of troubles. Only near the very end of his travels does this pattern vary at all. The stories are interesting, but the nearly unbroken chain of completely self-centered characters gets old after a while, and that pretty much sums up the entire collection.