I have bought Palliser's Tango and Play 1.d4 books, and they are quite good.
But these ones have been produced at the beginning of Mr Palliser chess books writing career. 

Not when he releases 6 books a year.

Many thanks for your support MartinC!
The anti-Sicilians work was chiefly done March to mid-May with the puzzle book from mid-May to mid-July. Finding 1200 puzzles and providing full solutions was far from riveting and required far too many 70+ hour weeks.
Have to work hard in this chess publishing business...
Good point too MartinC - I might well have to trade in at some point for a better-paid and less stressful job! For now, though, I'm still enjoying it!
To blugroz I'll just say that I hate authors who place speed above quality - my books have never yet been sent off with my unhappy about a certain section or two. Quality is important.

Hi Alumbrado.
Glad to see i'm not the only one !
Well, Mr Palliser has released none less than 6 books in 2007, as a quick search in amazon.com will tell you. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&field-keyw...

5 of them were opening books, 2 on the sicilian defence !

Am I the only one to think that ? 

This is my analysis of 4...Qd4!?.  The "!" reflects my enthusiasm for this line.  If my analysis is correct, this seems to be an excellent way to turn the tables on White in this surprise variation.

Grand Prix Attack - Hector Variation 4...Qd4! [B21]

1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Qd4!? 

This funny looking move temporarily prevents Bc4 and is also directly aimed against the weaknesses created by f4. 

[4...Nh6!? An interesting thing to note about the position is that this is a reversed Budapest with f4 thrown in.  4.Nh3 is a solid positional continuation against the Budapest, so I think that it is worth considering this as Black!]

5.Nc3
 
[5.d3 exd3 6.Bxd3 Compared to the Budapest version of this gambit, the addition of f4 seems to hurt White. 6...Nf6 7.c3 Qd5 8.0-0 Bg4 9.Qc2 c4]

5...Bf5 6.Nb5 

[6.g4?! Bc8 7.Ngxe4 Nf6 8.Nxf6+ Qxf6 9.Qf3 Qh4+ 10.Qg3 Qxg4 11.Qxg4 Bxg4 12.Bg2 Nc6 13.Nb5 Kd7]

6...Qd7 7.Bc4 Nh6 8.h3 a6 

[8...f6!? 9.g4 Nxg4 10.Nf7 (10.hxg4 Bxg4 11.Be2 Bxe2 12.Qxe2 fxg5 13.fxg5 Nc6; 10.Bf7+ Kd8 11.hxg4 Bxg4 12.Qxg4 Qxg4 13.Ne6+ Kc8 14.Nxc5 Qg3+ 15.Kf1 Qxf4+ 16.Kg1 Qg5+) 10...Nh6 11.Nxh8 g6 This doesn't look as clear to me, though it might be very good. 12.h4 Bg7 13.h5 Bg4 14.Be2 gxh5 and Kf8, g8, xh8 is probably the most straightforward method.]

9.Nc3 b5 10.Bd5 

[10.g4 bxc4 11.gxf5 Qxf5]

10...Ra7 11.Bxe4 

[11.g4 e6 12.Bxe4 (12.Bb3 c4 13.Bxc4 bxc4 14.gxf5 exf5) 12...Bxe4 13.Ncxe4 Qc6 14.d3 f5 15.Nf2 Nf7 16.Nf3 Bd6]

11...Bxe4 12.Ncxe4 e6 

I much prefer Black, since he seems to have a clearer long term plan for expansion in the center.  One sample continuation is 13.d3 Be7 14.Be3 Rc7 15.0-0 0-0 16.d4? Nf5.  If White delays the break, Black can play ...f5 and expand in the center.

For its scope (everything but 2.Nf3), Palliser's book is the most comprehensive I've seen.  I thought I remembered seeing 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 and an early g4, but maybe my memory is shaky.  (I'll have to check that one later when I get home.)  For 1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3, I didn't see anything explicitly covered, although Palliser covered 1.e4 c5 2.f4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 I believe, which would transpose if Black played 3...d5.  Of course, there's probably little doubt that 3...dxe4 is most effective, when Black should probably veer from the complications of the queen sac line (4.Ng5 Nf6 5.Bc4 Bg4 6.Bxf7+ Kd7 8.Qxg4) if he wants something simple.  Isn't black perfectly fine if he plays the simple 5.Bc4 e6, letting White have the pawn and arguing that White is not ideally placed in the long term?

However, maybe Black should be careful to avoid the following disaster:   

[Event "Champagne-chT"]
[Site "Ardennes"]
[Date "2005.05.05"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Labroche,Jerome"]
[Black "Delmont,Jean Robert"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "B21"]
1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Nf6 5.Bc4 e6 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Qe2 Nc6 8.Ncxe4 Nd4 
9.Qd3 0-0 10.Nxf6+  1-0

And I found one somewhat high profile game.  (Well, I am not sure how strong these guys were at the time.)

[Event "Gausdal zt"]
[Site "Gausdal"]
[Date "1987.01.??"]
[Round "0"]
[White "Hector,Jonny"]
[Black "Yrjola,Jouni"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "B21"]
1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Nf6 5.Bc4 e6 6.Nc3 a6 7.a4 Nc6 8.Ngxe4 Nxe4 
9.Nxe4 Be7 10.d3 0-0 11.0-0 b6 12.Bd2 Bb7 13.Qh5 Nd4 14.c3 g6 15.Qg4 h5 16.Qd1 b5 
17.Ba2 Nf5 18.Qe2 Qd7 19.Rae1 bxa4 20.Ra1 Bd5 21.Be1 a3 22.bxa3 Rfd8 23.Bb1 Qc7 24.Nd2 Bd6 
25.Qf2 c4 26.d4 Rab8 27.Ne4 Be7 28.Ng5 Rb3 29.a4 Qb7 30.Bd2 Rb2 31.Rd1 Bf6 32.Nf3 Bxf3 
33.Qxf3 Qxf3 34.gxf3 Bxd4+ 35.cxd4 Nxd4 36.Be4 f5 37.Be3 Ne2+ 38.Kf1 Rxd1+ 39.Rxd1 fxe4 40.fxe4 c3 
41.Re1 Rb4 42.Kxe2 Rxe4 43.Rc1 Rxa4 44.Kd3 Kf7 45.Rxc3 Ra2 46.Rc7+ Ke8 47.Rc2 Ra4 48.Bd4 Ra5 
49.h4 Ra3+ 50.Ke4 Rh3 51.Ke5 Kd7 52.Bf2 a5 53.Rd2+ Kc6 54.Kxe6 Rh2 55.Rc2+ Kb5 56.Kd5 a4 
57.Rb2+ Ka6 58.Kc6 Rh1 59.Rb8  1-0

One shocking thing I found was that on the www.chesslive.de database, the position after 5.Bc4 is +18 =7 -1 in White's favor!!  (Of course, a major bias is that there are many correspondence games as White played by some player named Krol.)

So don't worry about preparing!  It's so rare and if you encounter it, you'll probably lose anyway and will be lucky to draw!   

I was just wondering, what does the book recommend against 2 a3, and does it dismiss it offhand, or should one be wary of it?

    James

Not including the Rossolimo, Moscow, 2 Nf3 d6 3 c3 and 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Qxd4 was not an easy nor a nice decision to make! In the end we decided to focus on non-2 Nf3 lines because:
i. A study of many club games revealed 2 Nc3 Anti-Sicilians to be more common than 2 Nf3 Anti-Sicilians.
ii. Many Sicilian players (but by no means all!) appear better prepared for 2 Nf3 antis than for non-2 Nf3 ones.
iii. Some recent repertoire books only start from 2 Nf3.
iv. And especially because I wanted to cover 2 c3 and 2 Nc3 from the point of view of ...e6, ...d6 and ...Nc6 Sicilian players. Only covering 2 Nc3 Nc6 would not have pleased the Kan player!