Alpha 1
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About this ebook
The first in a series of superb science fiction.
_Alpha 1_ is, aside from the first letter of the Greek alphabet, a term that denotes excellence and primacy in a variety of disciplines: in nuclear physics, for example, it is the name of a particle of unusually large mass and charge. It seemed a useful label to attach to this volume, the first of an intended series of collections of science fiction stories.
The Alpha series of anthologies will center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. The presence in any one volume of a cluster of stories bearing other thematic resemblance--as in this volume, where there are four or five time-travel stories--will be purely coincidental. I propose to cull the files of the science fiction magazines for stories that an educated and sophisticated reader will find stimulating, and to assemble them in books of roughly equal size that will appear once a year over the next few years. Some of the stories will be fifteen or twenty years old and richly in need of restoration to print. Others will be quite recent: the literary level of the science fiction short story has undergone an extraordinary transformation in the past few years, a fact that demands recognition here.
Appropriately enough, this first volume of the ALPHA series covers a roster of writers from A to Z. Specifically, Aldiss to Zelazny--although this coincidence in alphabet is merely incidental to the fact that both these gentlemen, and the several others represented in this anthology, all write superb science fiction.
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.
So much for policy. 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.
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg has written more than 160 science fiction novels and nonfiction books. In his spare time he has edited over 60 anthologies. He began submitting stories to science fiction magazines when he was just 13. His first published story, entitled "Gorgon Planet," appeared in 1954 when he was a sophomore at Columbia University. In 1956 he won his first Hugo Award, for Most Promising New Author, and he hasn't stopped writing since. Among his standouts: the bestselling Lord Valentine trilogy, set on the planet of Majipoor, and the timeless classics Dying Inside and A Time of Changes. Silverberg has won the prestigious Nebula Award an astonishing five times, and Hugo Awards on four separate occasions; he has been nominated for both awards more times that any other writer. In 2004, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him their Grand Master award for career achievement, making him the only SF writer to win a major award in each of six consecutive decades.
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