by David Kubicek
This is by no means a definitive list of the best science fiction short stories ever written, mainly because I haven’t read every science fiction story ever written, and I’m sure there are many, many of them that would be on this list, but I haven’t read them yet, so they’re not on this list. Also, I’m defining “short story” as anything that can be read in one sitting if one desires, so some of these “short” stories are pushing 15,000 to 20,000 words.
I’ve selected these stories because I first read them years ago, and they stuck with me. In my mind, staying power makes a story classic. Some of them I’ve read several times over the years, others just a couple of times or only once, but they all left an impression on me. The stories are not in any particular order, except for “The Cold Equations” and “Flowers for Algernon”, which are my favorite all-time science fiction shorts, in that order.
There are a couple of omissions that I should acknowledge. One is that there are no Robert A. Heinlein stories on my list. Heinlein was a decent storyteller, but a terrible writer, and it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll ever see him on one of my lists.
The other omission, which I regret, is that there are no women writers on this list. But that can’t be helped; it was the nature of the genre at the time I was beginning my SF journey. In those days there were few women writers in the genre, and of the ones who were writing, none of their stories that I read stood out for me. There is a time travel story, written by Barbara Bartholomew and published in Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction in the mid- or late 1970s, which I’d love to put on this list; however, I can’t remember its title, and I’ve been unable to find it through an online search. It’s a pity because I really liked that story.
Also, the links are for convenience to help you locate the stories. They are not affiliate links–I don’t get paid if you click on them. In fact, you don’t have to buy the books to read the stories as long as there is a library near you. I regret that used bookstores and libraries may be the only source of some of these stories because they appear to be out of print; however, I could not in good conscience exclude them for that reason. Fortunately, a few of these stories were collected in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I, which is available in print and digital.
1. The Cold Equations, by Tom Godwin: This is a difficult story to describe without giving away too much information. It is about the interaction of a teenage stowaway and the pilot of an Emergency Cargo Ship delivering medicine to a group of researchers. The ship has enough fuel to take one person to its destination, but not two. The story revolves around the pilot’s efforts to save the stowaway’s life–she stowed away to see her brother, who is one of the researchers–rather than order her into the airlock and ejecting her into space as regulations require. You can find this story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I.
2. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes: This novelette is about Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded young man who becomes a genius after undergoing an experimental operation. The problem is that the improvement is only temporary. Keyes expanded this story into a novel, which goes into more detail, but the novelette is short and sweet. You can find this story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I.
3. The Star, by Arthur C. Clarke: This is perhaps Clarke’s most famous story. It was pretty controversial when it was originally published in the mid-1950s. Many critics called it blasphemous. Rejected by all of the major SF magazines, “The Star” finally found a home at a new, low-paying magazine. But Clarke had the last laugh. “The Star” won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1955.
4. It’s a Good Life, by Jerome Bixby: This story is about a young boy who holds a town hostage because he has the ability to do things with his mind–control the weather, make a rat eat itself, and do things to people who do or think things that he doesn’t like. It was chillingly adapted for the Twilight Zone in the early 1960’s. The novelette is just as chilling but offers a little more depth than the adaptation. Loss of depth is a common problem when stories are adapted to film. You can find this story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I.
5. What’s it Like Out There?, by Edmond Hamilton: Hamilton is a vastly underrated writer, partly because he wrote lots of space opera novels during the pulp era to make enough money to keep the lights on, but he has written many imaginative and thought-provoking stories like this one. He wrote “What’s it Like Out There” in the early 1930s but couldn’t sell it because the editors thought it was too bleak. Twenty years later the revised story, although still bleak, finally made it into print. It contrasts the public’s romanticized idea about space travel with the harsh realty experienced by a crewman recently returned from Mars.
6. The Pedestrian, by Ray Bradbury: This short little gem is about the consequences of taking a walk in the evening in a future world where everyone stays home and watches TV, and going out at night is considered aberrant behavior. This story is included in Bradbury’s collection The Golden Apples of the Sun.
7. There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury: This story about a “smart house” that has continued serving its occupants long after the occupants, and the rest of the world, have perished in an atomic war can be found in Bradbury’s Mars story collection/novel The Martian Chronicles.
8. The Little Black Bag, by C.M. Kornbluth: This story concerns a 25th-Century medical bag that is accidentally sent back in time to the mid-20th Century. By the 25th-Century, morons make up the majority of the population, and the few remaining smart people are their keepers. So the medical instruments must be simple so the moron doctors can use them–you just set the dials to diagnose and treat an illness. When the bag is accidently sent back in time, it falls into the hands of disgraced Dr. Full, who has been a wino for the past 20 years, ever since he lost his license to practice. Dr. Full wants to use the bag to do good, but his partner has dollar signs in her eyes. This story was also dramatized by Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, substantially rewritten, but both the prose and the film versions are worth checking out. You can find this story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I.
9. Microscopic God, by Theodore Sturgeon: A story about an eccentric inventor and recluse named Kidder–the owner and sole inhabitant on an island off the Atlantic coast–who creates a race of microscopic people who mirror human beings but have shorter lives and evolve faster than humans. This rapid evolution gives them the ability to invent technology much more quickly than full sized humans–this ability comes in handy when an evil banker attempts to use one of Kidder’s inventions (or, rather, the microscopic people’s invention) to conquer the world. I loved this story when I first read it in high school, and it has held up well over the years. You can find it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I.
10. Allamagoosa, by Eric Frank Russell: This humorous story knocked me out of my chair the first time I read it. Apparently, it appealed to a lot of science fiction fans, who gave it a Hugo Award in 1955. It seems to be quite scarce now, but you may be able to find a copy of it in one of the early Hugo Award Winners books at the library or a used bookstore. It is also in the sadly out-of-print collection The Best of Eric Frank Russell. The story centers around what turns out to be a typo and the hilarity that ensues when the spaceship Captain, preparing his ship for an inspection by an Admiral, tries to cover up the fact that he has no idea what an Offog is. But the thing that really makes this story great is that it centers around the nuts and bolts and the bureaucracy of operating a spaceship, which one doesn’t often see in SF stories.
11. Dear Devil, by Eric Frank Russel: This novelette is about how a Martian poet named Fander, stranded on Earth long after an atomic war did unfortunate things to the planet, helps the Terran civilization start to rebuild itself. It can be found in the sadly out-of-print collections The Best of Eric Frank Russel and Creatures From Beyond, edited by Terry Carr. Put this on your list when searching for used books online or at your local used bookstore.
12. The Bicentennial Man, by Isaac Asimov: This story, about a robot’s quest to be legally declared a human being was made into a film starring Robin Williams. You can find it in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories–unfortunately out of print—in a library or used bookstore or possibly in another collection of Asimov stories.
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