Containing essays by some of the most well know authors in the genre including Dean Koontz and Robert McCammon this book is sadly outdated and the last few chapters (on agents etc) are almost completely irrelevant now. In addition there are other chapters which are very much of their time such as the one on gender stereotypes.
For the budding fantasy writer there is little here, maybe four out of the twenty or so chapters were actively interesting and useful to me, but a more experienced and accomplished writer would probably find them less so- they deal with plot, character etc. There is a chapter on the sword and sorcery action novel which was interesting but the majority of the chapters dealt with horror and then science fiction, which interested me, but were again not of much use in the particular sub-genre I find myself drawn to.
I would recommend this as an excellent book for those who want to write horror or sci-fi, but if you are considering fantasy and only fantasy then I'm sure there are better and more relevant books on the subject.