The ninth in a series of superb science fiction.

The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre.

The ALPHA series—now in its ninth volume—has by now become an eight-inch shelf of the best in short science-fiction stories. Our editorial bias is doggedly middle-of-the-road, or so we like to think; that is, (writes renowned editor Robert Silverberg) I try to avoid the worst excesses of the avant-garde on the one hand, and the blast-and-slash foolishness of pulp adventure fiction on the other. Of course, one reader's traditional and staid is another's wild experimentalism—very likely the fans of Hugo Gernsback's pioneering Amazing Stories of the 1920's muttered angrily in their soup over the gaudy innovations of John Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction in 1939—and so the best I can do is provide a sampler of the sort of science fiction that pleases me, that defines by example what I think science fiction ought to be, and hope that others will agree.

Herewith, another such treasury of bright, sparkling, imaginative fiction!

(Note, Alpha 9 is the final volume produced.)

DUMB WAITER:

The war was over, but nobody had bothered to tell the machines...

THE FUNERAL:

It was quite a ceremony; after all, it was a world that had died...

THE SLICED-CROSSWISE ONLY-ON-TUESDAY WORLD:

Man could travel between the stars, but not between the Days...

GOODLIFE:

The Starship was as ancient as Time itself, but it still remembered its mission: DESTROY MAN!

THE DUSTY ZEBRA:

There are certain problems involved in setting up an inter-dimensional trading post...

NOBODY'S HOME:

The children are tired of chasing the sun. They want cruelty, glory and dirt...

And more!