This fifth volume in the Thieves World series contains stories by Janet Morris, C.J. Cherryh, Asprin, Lynn Abbey, David Drake, and Diana Paxson - with Andrew Offut noticeably and thankfully absent. The stories range from the grotesquely gripping to the merely entertaining, and overall are more enjoyable than most of the previous Thieves World books. The highlight is Paxson s "Mirror Image," which features the two only endearing characters in all of Thieves World, the painter Lalo and his wife, Gilla. Lalo, you see, had been cursed/blessed. His portraits revealed the inner soul of the subject, not the exterior facade (thus his large, domineering wife appears as a goddess). In "Mirror Image," Lalo paints a self-portrait and the result is a very moving tale. Despite the false packaging (the "invasion" referenced in the title is hardly that, just an omnipresence of mysterious, powerful foreigners), The Face of Chaos is, perhaps, the first Thieves World book I d recommend without reservations.