A mixed bag, as is often the case with anthologies. It includes the dullest, most pretentious story I've read for quite some time ("The Last Man Left in the Bar" by Kornbluth) but there is one story that stands head and shoulders above the rest. "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper describes the attempts of an archaeologist to translate, against all odds, the long-dead language of extinct Martians. It's really very good.