NOTE: The hardcover edition is available from Lulu.com. So, here's the story on this. For some unknown, utterly absurd, Brazil-esque reason, Amazon's copyright checking team's brains exploded and they blocked the hardcover edition of Alpha 2 because it contained a story that had fallen into the public domain. When we pointed out that this was not really a problem, there are lots of older science fiction stories in the public domain that are included in various anthologies on Amazon, they had some kind of conniption fit and blocked us from publishing the hardcover. Of course, they didn't have any problem with the ebook or the paperback. (Huh?) No amount of contacting them could resolve this problem. We quit trying after close to a hundred emails. (All of their responses being just plain wrong about this, and often non-sensical and off-topic.) So, we found another print on demand company that can print it. We have chosen not to list this edition on Amazon because (a) it would jump the price up to about $50 (because so many hands take a cut in that case), and (b) we're just not sure Amazon's brains wouldn't further explode and they'd do something even more drastic. We want to be sure you wonderful readers have access to a hardcover edition, so we hunted around and found that Lulu would do what we need. Sorry for the inconvenience! (And, again, the ebook & paperback are available as usual.)

The second in a series of superb science fiction.

The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality.

Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories—literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling—brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny—and several steps in-between.

Whatever else these stories may be doing, they all explore the interplay between human beings and the technological society man has created for himself. Good science fiction simultaneously peers into remote realms of space and time and holds a mirror to the contemporary moment; and if the reflection in that mirror is somewhat distorted, so be it. Blame not the messenger for bearing bad tidings. Herewith ten stories which demonstrate the unsettling kinds of insights that science fiction alone can offer. More are on the way.

The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced.

Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.