# Best Science Fiction short story ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 27, 2005, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891 "2005-01-27T06:56:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/121 "2012-11-21T09:33:18Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > …_The Cold Equation_. I still remember the first time I read it, and the way it knocked the wind right out of me… BTW, they made a TV version of this a few years back. DO NOT watch it! It completely butchers the whole point of the story – the cold equations are a government lie to keep control of the pilots. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/122 "2012-11-21T09:35:18Z")
My favorite is Burning Chrome by William Gibson. Classic Cyberpunk, and I wish he had never moved on from Cyberpunk, or at least to what he is up to lately… ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/123 "2012-11-21T19:09:49Z")
“Scanners Live in Vain” by Cordwainer Smith (I’m only putting down one, because if I put down any more, I’ll be typing for a very long time.) ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/124 "2012-11-21T19:48:36Z")
I haven’t seen a vote for “Far Centaurus” by A. E. van Vogt. A space ship sets out for the nearest star system with the astronauts in hibernation, only to arrive at their destination to find that technology has passed them by, and the worlds there are already populated by…Earth people who discovered faster ways to travel, after they had left. It illustrates a paradox, and I’m sure there is a name for it but I can’t put my finger on it right now, of why should we send ships on long voyages that will only become obsolete in the near future when better technology is discovered. If you don’t send the slow ships now, the new technology might not be discovered, if you do send them they may be passed up and forgotten. So do you go now, or do you wait? ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/125 "2012-11-21T19:56:20Z")
Too late to edit. I just realized that this thread was started before I registered to post here. It’s like this thread woke up and time had passed it by. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/126 "2012-11-21T20:54:44Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > “All You Zombies” by Robert A Heinlein I see what you did there. 😃 But, if we can still play, I would like to nominate _Common Time_ by James Blish and _Day Million_ by Frederick Pohl. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/127 "2012-11-21T21:05:46Z")
My favorite, not mentioned, is _Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons_, by Cordwainer Smith. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find it online. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/128 "2012-11-21T21:25:42Z")
Blood Music by Greg Bear. It’s both a short story and a novel. Both are wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/129 "2012-11-21T21:52:20Z")
I’d vote for so many of those already mentioned. But I’d like to add “Rogue Moon” by Algis Budrys . This was also in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame . It has an unforgettable ending. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/130 "2012-11-22T02:39:21Z")
“Placet Is A Crazy Place” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/131 "2012-11-22T04:29:10Z")
Just noticed this thread. Very hard to narrow down my many favorites, but with great self-restraint I’ll list, say, my top five: “The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance - An Earth diplomat offends the local alien populace, all of whom wear masks and communicate by singing, while trying to catch a criminal. “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin - A bored, dissolute rich man acquires alien pets - a culture of tiny warriors who will teach him a deadly lesson. “The Scythe” by Ray Bradbury - During the Depression, a down-and-out man and his family find a peculiar farm, and he soon realizes he has met a most unwelcome destiny. “Little Lost Robot” by Isaac Asimov - Dr. Susan Calvin must find a particularly wily - and dangerous - robot which is purposefully hiding on a military asteroid base. “Rescue Party” by Arthur C. Clarke - An alien starship comes to help the people of Earth just before the Sun goes supernova… and its crew gets a surprise that will reverberate for years to come. I could think of another five - or twenty - without too much effort. But these are particularly good, and particularly close to my heart. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/132 "2012-11-22T04:52:53Z")
It’s been mentioned, but the SF short that’s considered a classic and has stood up best for me is PKD’s “Second Variety”. Given the Cold War setting it may not be as timeless as some others mentioned, but I don’t really feel that SF lends itself well to timelessness. Fantasy, which is not dependent on the current understanding of how the universe works, does timeless a lot better than SF. “Second Variety” reflects its time in the classic SF way: 50s paranoia. However, rather than a conspiracy of communists hatching plots to overthrow Americans, a conspiracy of robots is plotting to overthrow both the commies and the yanks, throwing out the whole thing. Naturally, the protagonist can’t tell real from fake. The robots don’t just plot against the humans, either; there’s evidence that they’re gearing up to wage war on one another. It speaks to the human condition in a way that SF only can: humans can, through science, not only destroy themselves, but create the destroyers and provide them with tools. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/133 "2012-11-22T19:14:48Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > At some point in this thread, someone asked how to find these stories. The answer is to check the Internet Speculative Fiction Database: > > [The Internet Speculative Fiction Database](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi) > > Here are my twenty favorite science fiction works of less than 25,000 words: > > Christopher Anvil “Mind Partner” > J. G. Ballard “The Subliminal Man” > Alfred Bester “Disappearing Act” > F. M. Busby “If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy” > A. J. Deutsch “A Subway Named Mobius” > Philip K. Dick “Faith of Our Fathers” > George Alec Effinger “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything” > Harlan Ellison “Jeffty Is Five” > Philip José Farmer “Towards the Beloved City” > Charles Harness “The New Reality” > Robert Heinlein “– All You Zombies –” > Norman Kagan “The Mathenauts” > Daniel Keyes “Flowers for Algernon” > C. M. Kornbluth “The Little Black Bag” > David I. Masson “Traveler’s Rest” > Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” > T. L. Sherred “E for Effort” > Howard Waldrop “The Ugly Chickens” > Ian Watson “The Very Slow Time Machine” > Roger Zelazny “A Rose for Ecclesiastes" I’ve read most of these and agree with your assessment. I also like Sturgeon’s “Baby is Three” and “And Now the News,” Tenn’s “Brooklyn Project” and Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/134 "2012-11-23T04:01:06Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > …George Alec Effinger “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, _Everything_”… I _love_ that story! Hilarious. Funny sf at its best. It draws the perfect distinction between aliens who know everything and have much to teach humanity, and aliens who… are just annoying know-it-alls. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/135 "2012-11-23T09:12:27Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > [“The Screwfly Solution”](http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html) by Raccoona Sheldon. > > The link is to the entire text. Came here to post this. I’ll throw “[The End of the Whole Mess](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Whole_Mess)” by Stephen King into the mix. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/136 "2012-11-24T07:01:44Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > My favorite, not mentioned, is _Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons_, by Cordwainer Smith. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find it online. Weird, it’s, like, the second link if you Google-search the name. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/137 "2012-11-24T07:19:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > “Flowers for Algernon” is speculative fiction, although in the sense that Heinlein coined the phrase for, not the sense that I’ve been using it in. “Flowers for Algernon” is science fiction. The story could not happen without the science; the science is integral to the story. Neither belong to our world, but they’ve close, so very close, that we think, we hope, that we can reach out and touch Charlie Gordon, and feel for Charlie Gordon, and for ourselves. > > That’s good fiction. That’s good science fiction. > > And always will be. Thank you. I have this argument far too often. In other news, I have on my shelf a collection entitled _The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century_ that includes neither “By His Bootstraps” NOR “All You Zombies”. What a joke! I mean, I understand that you can’t always buy the rights to the stories you want, but the collection is incomplete without one of those two stories. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/138 "2012-11-24T07:59:52Z")
There are several stories that were totally original when they were written but now suffer because the concepts have been copied so many times since by lesser writers. I was lucky enough to read Heinlein’s **Universe** and Weinbaum’s **A Martian Oddessy** at a very young age before being exposed to any of the poor imitations that followed and consider those two stories to be the best short SF I’ve ever read. The Golden Age of Science Fiction is, indeed, the age of 10. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/139 "2012-11-24T08:35:51Z")
I’ll mention a few of my favorites that I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet; _The Jaunt_, Stephen King _The Weapon Shop_, A.E. van Vogt _Born of Man and Woman_, Richard Matheson _Button, Button_, Richard Matheson _It’s a Good Life_, Jerome Bixby _[SCP-093](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-093)_, various authors ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/140 "2012-11-24T09:11:19Z")
well I’m not sure about the short story size requirement but The Light of Other Days is a story about how a single invention can unwind all cultures everywhere as we know it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891.md?page=8)