
50 authors, 50 science fiction stories shorter than novels - ghaff
https://bitmason.blogspot.com/2020/07/50-favorite-short-science-fiction.html
======
Barrin92
Like the list, big fan of Borges, Egan and Chiang, but very surprised to see
no Lem. He has to be on a list like that. _A Perfect Vacuum_ is brilliant and
the Cyberiad is a great candidate as well.

Another thing I'm surprised to not see on the list is Chinese short-story sci-
fi, there's been a lot of great stuff coming out of the country in recent
years much of it translated by Ken Liu.

 _Folding Beijing_ by Hao Jingfang is great and free to read[1], there's _The
Wandering Earth_ by Liu Cixin whose _Three Body_ books got a lot of attention,
and there's another collection called _Invisible Planets_ , which has a few
good stories by Chen Qiufan. He's also written a very good novel called _Waste
Tide_.

[1][https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-
beijing-2/](https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/)

~~~
chance_state
I found the first of the Three Body Problem series to be very dry and about
twice as long as it should have been.

Are the other stories translated by Liu any better do you think? I want to
give Chinese sci-fi an honest try but my attempt with Three Body Problem
wasn't great.

~~~
Barrin92
seconding riffraff, the second book is a much easier and more entertaining
read, I'd definitely give it a shot.

~~~
em-bee
that's good to know. i have been struggling with the first one.

one thing i am wondering is if having different translators for the books is
noticeable in any way

------
filoeleven
My first introduction to sci-fi, I think, at the tender age of maybe eight,
was Ray Bradbury’s All Summer In A Day. It uses the fantastical setting of
human colonies on Venus to starkly illustrate both the thoughtless cruelty of
children and their ability to later understand what they’ve done. I don’t
think of it often, but it was formative. So thanks OP for the reminder. At
that age, with my experience then, it had the same effect that The Lottery had
on a lot of older people, I think.

An engaging novella by a now-dead luminary is The Fifth Head of Cerberus by
Gene Wolfe, 1972. It’s a book of three short stories, written in three
different styles, all interrelated and containing a central mystery.

Wolfe is well-known for hiding puzzles in his books that deepen your
understanding and appreciation of his stories without detracting at all from a
more casual reading. He’s my favorite author, and I’ll freely admit that he’s
hit-or-miss sometimes. His best works, this one included, are in worlds
(usually some iteration of our own) where long-established systems are in a
state of decay. More like an ill-maintained shed that’s still used while being
slowly pulled apart by a beautiful trumpet vine than some catastrophic
dystopia, and not without hope. He also has a knack for making sci-fi look
like fantasy until you pay closer attention that I really like.

If you’re someone who likes to re-read your books, check him out. I’m still
holding out for Book of the Long Sun to be made into a miniseries; it’s one of
the reasons I bring him up so often. Someday, the right set of eyes may read
this =)

~~~
chrisweekly
Thanks for the Wolfe rec; sounds like we have some tastes in common. Along
those lines, I heartily recommend basically everything by David Mitchell --
and reading his works in their published order. They stand on their own, but
there are myriad narrative threads and subtle literary puzzles throughout. I
look forward to re-reading them in sequence -- after I devour "Utopia Avenue",
which I just now learned to my delight was published 12 days ago! :)

~~~
filoeleven
I’ll check him out, thanks in kind! The name threw me at first, because the
David Mitchell I’m familiar with is a British comedian who I’m already fond
of.

And I’ve just learned that he wrote Cloud Atlas, a film that I started
watching in the wrong headspace so didn’t get far, but I remember being
intrigued by the synopsis I read beforehand. Ghostwritten is where to start,
yes? Or are there short stories that I should seek out first?

Your timing is perfect: I’m waiting for 3 (!) unfinished series to release
their next volumes, so a writer who will keep me busy for a month or two is
most welcome!

—

For (in)completeness’ sake, because I can’t help sharing my excitement about
these, even though they are strictly off topic at this point and this post
will be too damn long, the unfinished series I’m waiting for are:

NK Jemisin (an author in OP’s list) - Great Cities series (One book complete).
What if cities can become (once they grow complex enough) living beings? What
if there are extra-dimensional forces arrayed against them, and the cities
raise humans as avatars to help themselves? Only one book is finished, and
it’s a good one. Self-aware Lovecraft for the modern world, focused on NYC.
Her complete Broken Earth trilogy is also good.

Robert Jackson Bennett - The Founders Trilogy (two books complete). In this
world, “scribing” is a way to make physical objects behave as if their
physical constants were altered, much like variables in programming. A thief
who can “see” these scribings gets in touch with a “talking” key who has a
much greater understanding of them. But what kind of graybeard made the key
ages ago? What’s their long game? Why can the thief even see this stuff? Being
a programmer probably adds a lot to this one, but it’s not a requirement.
Reminds me some of Stephenson’s wit with a lot less of his expository
narrative (no slight there—he’s easily in my top 5, and some narrative asides
are some of his best bits.)

Peter Newman - The Deathless (Two books complete). This one really surprised
me. Royals with flying armor live in floating castles and cultivate “heirs”
who will host their consciousnesses when they die, while commoners scrabble
near The Wild that grows just outside the influence of the royals’ magical
roads. I‘m sorry to say that I read a preview out of incredulity, with the
intent of hating on the premise. Turns out it intrigued me enough to buy the
first book, and then I was hooked because the world and its inhabitants are
super interesting. “Don’t judge a book by its synopsis,” etc.

Bonus, ‘cause why not: James A. Corey - The Expanse. Read your own summary for
this one =)

~~~
Freak_NL
_The Bone Clocks_ and _The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet_ are both greatly
entertaining novels as well (and tangentially related to both, the shorter
novel _Slade House_ ).

Personally I found these more enjoyable than _Cloud Atlas_ , which is good and
a must-read nonetheless, but relies a lot on its narrative structure for its
effect (this is not a negative, but the Matryoshka doll structure of the book
does define it rather strongly).

------
8bitsrule
I got started in SF by reading the anthologies. Typically vetted by people
with a reputation. Fine way to find new favorite authors.

225 examples :
[https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7967.Best_Science_Fictio...](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7967.Best_Science_Fiction_Anthologies)

'Escape Pod' reads new short SF, now up to its 740s; it was a 2020 Hugo
finalist : [https://escapepod.org/](https://escapepod.org/)

------
BelleOfTheBall
Quite a few on this list are sci-fi legends but I'm most glad to see the tail-
end: both Maria Machado and Jemisin are amazing voices who write thick and
lush prose, something that sci-fi lacks sometimes. Charlie Jane Anders,
meanwhile, is delightfully off-beat and every novel of hers was a pleasant
time so far.

In general, I'd recommend to not stick to the oldies. Read a bit of the
classics and then venture into the modern stuff, there's a lot to like there.
Martha Wells, Matt Wallace, T. Kingfisher, K.B. Wagers, to name a few.

~~~
Animats
_Quite a few on this list are sci-fi legends_.

Indeed.

"The Machine Stops" is a must-read. It's over a century old and is not dated.

I've always liked "With the Night Mail". Kipling wrote two SF stories, and
this is one of them.

"A Logic Named Joe" \- the Internet and Google, from 1946.

"Ender's Game", the short story, was of course expanded into a series of books
and a movie. The original short story is better.

That's also true of "Farewell to the Master", not on the list. That's the
basis for "The Day the Earth Stood Still". The original short story is very
rarely seen. Nor is the ending well known. It should be. Wikipedia summarizes
it.

~~~
aidenn0
I read farewell to the master in a Hugo winners collection. I then saw "The
Day the Earth Stood Still" and felt the movie was much better. The ending of
the short story was IMO the weakest part, but ymmv.

~~~
ghaff
I agree. The movie is my Top 100 list. The story is "OK."

~~~
Animats
The 1951 movie, yes. The 2008 remake, er, no way.

~~~
ghaff
I had forgotten there even was a remake. I think I heard it was pretty bad and
didn't want to ruin my memory of the original.

------
atombender
Good list, but a few notable gaps.

Not a lot of people know, perhaps, that Gene Wolfe was a fantastic short story
writer. Among my favourites are "Hero as Werewolf" and "The Island of Doctor
Death and Other Stories" [1], the latter a pitch-perfect analysis of why we
need to read stories.

R. A. Lafferty is also notably absent. If he needs to be known for just one
short story, it's "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" [2]. Probably the funniest
time-travel story ever written.

[1]
[http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/591130106.pdf](http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/591130106.pdf)

[2]
[http://24.130.149.112:82/get/pdf/2256](http://24.130.149.112:82/get/pdf/2256)

~~~
User23
The book I have is titled The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and
Other Stories[1]. Makes the meta element a bit clearer.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Death_a...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Death_and_Other_Stories_and_Other_Stories)

~~~
atombender
Yep. The book has three variations:

* The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories

* The Death of Dr. Island

* The Doctor of Death Island

------
twic
Ballard wrote a lot of solidly SF short stories. I think my favourite is
Report on an Unidentified Space Station:

[http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~kite/doc/roauss.htm](http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~kite/doc/roauss.htm)

~~~
ghaff
I actually wasn't sure I had picked my favorite Ballard entry. I've been
reading through his main collection. Wyndham is also fantastic in _somewhat_
the same vein (although with narrower focus) but I don't love any of his short
stories as opposed to novels.

------
wintorez
Ted Chiang is one of my all-time favorites. I keep going back to his stories.
Other than “Story of your life” which is listed here, I highly recommend
“Tower of Babylon” and “Hell Is the Absence of God”.

Also, there are some gems in Fred Saberhagen Bereserkers series.

~~~
graposaymaname
+1

Absolutely loved Chiang's short story collection "Exhalation". I didn't quite
see SF as essential reading before reading this book.

------
ghaff
OP here. I really appreciate everyone's helpful feedback and recommendations.
It definitely encourages me to do some reading and come up with an addendum
for some additional stories.

------
riffraff
Good list. Sad not to see "Sentry" by Fredric Brown in it[0]. It's 70 years
old and still reads great.

[0]
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files29948/29948-h/29948-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files29948/29948-h/29948-h.htm)

~~~
ghaff
I just read Sentry—didn’t take long—and I wonder if the intervening years
didn’t set up certain expectations. Because I pretty much knew where things
were going.

------
oska
Regarding the Le Guin selection: _The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas_ is
perhaps my least favourite Le Guin story. I understand (and appreciate) the
theme but its presentation is so tritely and artificially delivered that I
think it undermines itself. It frankly reads like a morally earnest high
schooler's piece of creative writing (albeit with more polished prose). I find
Le Guin a mediocre writer when she is at her most didactic. Conversely, when
she writes from a more subconscious, mystical space she is brilliant. And this
is mostly her earlier work.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
I'm no literary critic, but I really liked Omelas. She makes this huge push to
make it very clear that she is setting up a moral allegory, and in the end,
she leaves the actual point completely vague. It feels like a windup to "this
society is bad," but then she just weakens the condemnation down to a mild
suggestion. It was neat.

~~~
oska
Appreciate you giving your well-expressed differing take.

------
pwdisswordfish2
Thanks for posting this! I’ve been enjoing short stories more than I thought
after picking up Men Without Women recently. They make for very nice lunchtime
reading :D I also appreciate that the list is full of classics. I quite like
the feeling of reading an established canon.

Flowers For Algernon never interested me much, but learning now that it was
originally a short story, I’ll put it on my list.

Here is a neat pdf of Asimov’s The Last Question, for those who are into that
sort of thing: [https://docdro.id/GQfVN6o](https://docdro.id/GQfVN6o)

------
stoneman24
It’s a good list. I have a copy of “The 100 best short short science fiction
stories” somewhere in the attic. Pretty old now, but some classics from a
variety of authors. I’m sure there’s cheaper options than amazon but it has
the book details [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Science-Fiction-Short-
Stories...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Science-Fiction-Short-
Stories/dp/0380507730)

~~~
ghaff
That book is a collection of _very_ short stories. It's fine given that focus
but I read through it recently and I don't personally find much in there that
I consider to be particularly great.

------
khendron
Nice list. There is lots of new stuff here for me.

The obvious miss is John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (1938), which is the
inspiration for the movie The Thing.

~~~
sigzero
I have that "book". I have read it several times and it is a great read. There
is also an expanded version and John Betancourt is working on a sequel to it.

------
Noumenon72
Surface Tension is one of the most memorable stories from my youth. Not hard
sci-fi, but rationality and adventure. The introduction can be skimmed.
[http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/Blish,%20James%20-%20%5BNovele...](http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/Blish,%20James%20-%20%5BNovelette%5D%20Surface%20Tension%20%5Bv1.0%5D.htm)

------
quercusa
There's a lot there I need to add to my list. I'd like to put in a word for
Eric Frank Russell, whose short Allamagoosa
([https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1439133476/1439133476___3.htm](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1439133476/1439133476___3.htm))
won the first Best Short Story Hugo.

------
noisy_boy
Reading this reminded me of the Oxford Book of Science Fiction, my first
introduction to serious science fiction - I had a copy and lost it. So I
searched for it and found the cover page[0] and noticed Tom Shippey's name who
was the editor - I remembered that name after 20+ years! And then I searched
for other anthologies by him and found The Oxford Book of Fantasy stories
which I also lost - this[1] was the cover page. Blast from the past!

[0]:
[https://blackwells.co.uk/jacket/l/9780192831675.jpg](https://blackwells.co.uk/jacket/l/9780192831675.jpg)
[1]:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d8/b5/d7/d8b5d7aa47735f7a0a51...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d8/b5/d7/d8b5d7aa47735f7a0a51d72ce401bb20.jpg)

------
albertzeyer
How do you prefer to read these?

They mostly seem to be free to read directly from the websites of their online
magazines, like [http://www.tor.com](http://www.tor.com),
[http://strangehorizons.com](http://strangehorizons.com), [http://apex-
magazine.com](http://apex-magazine.com),
[http://uncannymagazine.com](http://uncannymagazine.com),
[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com](http://clarkesworldmagazine.com).

So you would read them on your tablet or notebook? How would you read them on
e.g. the Kindle? Print as PDF, and copy the PDF to the Kindle? Or some better
way?

~~~
ghaff
It's actually a complaint of mine that I can't mostly buy these for $1-2 on
Amazon and call it a day. Rather I have to head around the web and find "free"
copies that may or may not be legit or buy collections off Amazon (which may
be OK). But, yes, it's annoying I can't legit just pay for the whole
collection, much of which is pretty old.

~~~
tialaramex
Popular collections tend to stay in print in softback for a while. The late
Gardner Dozois edited "Years Best Science Fiction" every year which is a hefty
collection of good short SF from that year, usually takes me a few months to
consume one of those, and it's nice to have a mix even if not all the stories
are to my taste. The collection is paying the authors for their work to
appear, so if your concern is whether authors get paid that's covered.

Even really old stuff is not infrequently still in print. Somebody else
mentioned Lem, the English translations of Lem's short fiction are generally
in print, though it can be a struggle to find things like Hospital of the
Transfiguration that are a bit niche (and not Science Fiction) or his literary
criticism (Lem thought most SF in his day was crap, I am tempted to agree)

You will struggle to buy individual stories because that's not really a thing.
Some professional writers only write shorts to introduce an idea or setting
before novel-length publication e.g. Egan gives away shorts about the Amalgam,
the setting for his novel Incandescence, and the intro to some of his novels
works as a short (e.g. "Orphanogensis" is actually the start of a novel, but
it's also a perfectly functional short story about "orphans", people created
randomly in a society where people are just software...). So for those the
author believes they are essentially advertising the larger product with a
free story.

~~~
Freak_NL
Finding (print) anthologies that contain a specific short story can be a
challenge though.

I got introduced to Bujold's Vorkosigan series via the short story "The
Borders of Infinity" which is (amongst plenty of other anthologies and a
collection of three Vorkosigan shorts confusingly called _Borders of Infinity_
itself) included in _Infinite Stars_ (ed. Bryan Thomas Schmidt). Getting most
of the novels was easy enough, but hunting down the remaining short stories
meant foraging for second-hand out-of-print anthologies.

------
danidiaz
One interesting collection of science fiction short stories from the early
seventies is "Moderan" by David R. Bunch. After many years out of print, it
was recently re-published in the NYRB Classics series:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38732324-moderan](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38732324-moderan)
Very surreal—and sometimes disturbing—tales about cyborgs trying to leave
their humanity behind.

Another masterful writer of surreal science fiction stories was R. A. Lafferty
[https://www.amazon.com/Best-R-
Lafferty/dp/1473213444/](https://www.amazon.com/Best-R-
Lafferty/dp/1473213444/)

~~~
ghaff
OP here. Thanks. I'll check those out. I tried to cast a fairly wide net here
although I'm probably less into surreal.

------
bsanr2
I remember reading several of these in school, as school assignments. I
remember being surprised years later to find how recent they were, as well as
how uncontroversial their inclusion in the curriculum was.

On that note, kinda sad that they chose "True Names" over "Fast Times at
Fairmont High" for Vinge's entry. Though I haven't read the former, the latter
reads like TN's description, except for phenomena that haven't fully unfurled
their existence and possibility yet. AR glasses, anyone?

[https://www.scribd.com/document/139440129/Fast-Times-at-
Fair...](https://www.scribd.com/document/139440129/Fast-Times-at-Fairmont-
High)

~~~
ghaff
I'm actually not sure I have read that and I will have to. True Names was much
earlier and I think probably more prescient as a result. (And I personally
read it during that earlier period so my reaction is probably much different.)

ADDED: It's also very much a story about people, not just technology.

~~~
bsanr2
I would not be surprised if Vinge considered RE an update or reboot of TN,
because they share many qualities. TN was prescient because a lot of what it
imagined came to pass. I think RE ultimately will be, too; we're just in the
middle of watching it unfold. I think that's profound. We haven't seen a
massive pitched battle between players of Pokemon Go and some other fandom
(Vinge thought it would be Terry Pratchett fans, but I'm thinking Yu-Gi-Oh or
Harry Potter stans are more likely), but just you wait.

------
beesNchickens
I'm surprised to not find Stanley G. Weinbaum in the list or the comments. He
was early in sci-fi (mid 1930s) and died not too long after his career took
off, but a bunch of his writing laid the foundation for many SF writers that
came after.

~~~
ghaff
I reread "A Martian Odyssey" and I know it appears on a lot of top 10 lists
but I honestly don't think it's a terribly interesting story for a modern
audience.

------
misterkrabs
It's a Good Life - the article mentions it was made into a Twilight Zone
episode. I saw this episode like a month ago on MeTV, accidentally, late at
night. Wow it was freaky. Really disturbing.

The article doesn't really do it justice. The kid in the story has God powers
and can do whatever he wants, so he creates Cronenberg creatures and wantonly
kills people. All of the adults have to agree that it's a good thing,
otherwise he gets irritated and disappears them. So you get scenes like where
a wife has to emphatically agree that it was a good thing her husband was
killed.

The whole thing was like a scary David Lynch scene.

------
kwhitefoot
> Sturgeon is not generally very well known

This must be an example of Sturgeon's Law.

------
rkuykendall-com
Two more not on this list:

Terry Bisson - They're Made out of Meat
[https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...](https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html)

Andy Weir - The Egg
[http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html](http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html)

~~~
ghaff
I will check out. Bears Discover Fire was a recommendation that I didn’t live.

------
site-packages1
Liking this list a lot! I've read a bunch of these and enjoyed them so if
that's any indication of the quality of the rest for me, then I'll enjoy many
of the others!

I think I'll catch some flack for saying this, but skimming I'm only seeing
14% of the authors are female. I'm sure there are many reasons why one might
say the proportion of female to male SF writers is not the same as the
proportion of male to female in society at large, but it would have been nice
to see more female representation on the list.

~~~
ghaff
I think your numbers are about right even allowing for the pseudonyms of
husband and wife teams (Lewis Pladgett) and women individually (James Tiptree
Jr) but it just reflects what has been a rather male-dominated genre. You'd
see the flip case I'm sure if we were talking romance novels.

------
bhickey
Ambiguity Machines: An Examination, by Vandana Singh

[https://www.tor.com/2015/04/29/ambiguity-machines-an-
examina...](https://www.tor.com/2015/04/29/ambiguity-machines-an-examination-
vandana-singh/)

Salto Mortal, by Nick T. Chan
[http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/salto-
mortal/](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/salto-mortal/)

------
zatel
One of my favorite scifi short stories is Manna by Michael Brain (creator of
howstuffworks.com)

It two futures based around easy industrial production/ai and feels closer to
reality then it did a few years ago.

Here is the link for anyone interested:
[https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
rootbear
This is a great list. Given my limited attention span, I've always been drawn
to short fiction. I'm familiar with a number of the stories mentioned and some
of the "runners up". And now I've got a list of new stories to hunt down.

One typo: "Speaker of the Dead" should be "Speaker for the Dead".

~~~
ghaff
Thanks. Fixed. I admit a lot of these stories tend towards novelette or
novella length. But it's still easier for me than a novel these days in
general.

------
xrd
I had a vague idea that I had read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery from this
list. I checked it out and I do recall it, and it was really shocking to read.
Apparently subscribers of The New Yorker, where it was first serialized,
cancelled their subscriptions in disgust. Early cancel culture.

------
pronoiac
_searches for Murderbot_

I’m surprised to see it’s not mentioned yet! Martha Wells’ Murderbot series is
really fun reading.

~~~
nepeckman
+1 for Murderbot, but I think it's a little long for the list! Great read
though if anyone is looking for recommendations.

~~~
pronoiac
There were four novellas before the novel, though.

------
kentbrew
Some very strong choices here. Here's another great one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum)

------
chrisofspades
Nnedi Okorafor's _Binti_ would be a great modern addition to this list.

------
liendolucas
I couldn't find "The Desire Machine" by the Strugatsky brothers which is a
prelude to "Roadside Picnic". For those who watched "The Stalker" by Tarkovsky
this is a must read.

------
grumpymetalguy
Although it's from a "newer" author, one of my favourite short stories is
Diamond Dogs, by Alastair Reynolds. For me, it's perfect sci-fi, it gets a re-
read every couple of years..

------
ur-whale
I would have added Jack Vance's _The_Moon_Moth_ [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Moth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Moth)

------
mathattack
Great to help my reading list. Thanks for sharing! I think many great science
fiction ideas don’t require a full novel to get the reader to open their mind.
That’s why I love the short stories. Thanks again!

------
jimmysong
I was surprised not to see Ken Liu on there, given just how many really good
short stories he's written. If I had to pick just one, _Paper Menagerie_
deserves to be on this list.

------
ajuc
Scifi short stories and no Lem? Any story from Cyberiad would do.

------
tialaramex
No alt-history on this list? Or maybe I didn't read carefully enough.

There's a lot of interesting short alt-history, the nice thing about the genre
for shorts is that the reader needs little introduction to the setting - it's
our world, except a little different, and discovering how it's different is
often the core of the story.

A great many of the famous examples involve Nazis winning World War II, though
e.g. Weinachtsabend by Keith Roberts puts an very interesting spin on that
(Britain agrees terms with Germany and the war is over quickly, but decades
later things aren't so simple) but much less obviously how about Howard
Waldrop's "Custer's Last Jump" in which the Battle of the Little Bighorn
happens in an alternate 19th century America that has powered flight...

~~~
pp19dd
Harry Turtledove has some very interesting short stories, such as "Road Not
Taken" that concerns alien invaders in our near future.

But overall he's a master of the alt-history genre and worth the attention of
reading his books. Guns of the South: General Lee on the cover holding an
AK-47. He's a historian and did original primary research for it, but, 'nuff
said. Worldwar In the Balance: Aliens attack in 1941, during fierce WWII
fighting. Well fleshed out.

~~~
Seb-C
"The road not taken" is one of my favourites. It gives a very interesting
alternative way to think about science and technological progress. And the
ending gives such an amazing feeling...

The only drawback is that as a non-native English speaker, the "pirate
english" language at the beginning made it very hard for me to understand, so
it is a story that is difficult to recommend to my friends.

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ddrt
I recently started reading Neuromancer thinking it was going to be an
interesting sci-fi short story. Boy was I mistaken (happy but still mistaken)

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irrational
The only ones I’ve read are the ones by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and
Orson Scott Card. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do.

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tom-thistime
Great list. It's too bad there wasn't room to squeeze an early John Varley
story on there. Maybe Press Enter _.

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joe-collins
Not yet a mention of Charles Stross in this thread! For a short story, I
recommend his Lovecraftian _A Colder War_.

~~~
ghaff
I very nearly included "Rogue Farm." I just ran out of slots.

