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 mo