# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/141 "2012-11-24T14:15:45Z")
“The Way of Cross and Dragon” - George R. R. Martin “Shark” - Ed Bryant “The Long Years” - Ray Bradbury ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/142 "2012-11-24T17:47:56Z")
One of my favourites is fairly recent: “Echoes” by Alan Brennert. ---
**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 24, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/143 "2012-11-24T18:27:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Weird, it’s, like, the second link if you Google-search the name. That wasn’t there when I checked. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/144 "2012-11-24T20:42:09Z")
Since the zombie lives… I like Sturgeon’s “Affair with a Green Monkey” a story from 1958 in which gay culture is integral to the plot. I haven’t read it in 20 years, but the last time I did it held up well. R. A. Lafferty’s “Continued On Next Rock” is more fantasy than SF, but I’m not picky. Nominated for the Nebula. I have good memories or “Inconstant Moon”, “Cold Equations”, “Screwfly Solution”, “Light of Other Days”, and others previously mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/145 "2012-11-24T20:59:33Z")
Probably not surprisingly, two of Asimov’s are my favorites: “Nightfall” and “The Dead Past,” with “The Nine Billion Names of God” also high on the list. I’ve been out of the habit of reading for a while, now, and I think I’m going to enjoy tracking down some of the stories posted in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/146 "2012-11-24T21:35:31Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > 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? A similar question was answered for computers. If you have a fixed amount of money, and a difficult problem where the program will take many years to run, how can you most quickly solve it? Do you buy a computer now and start it, or wait to buy, and how long should you wait? With Moore’s law, computers double in capability roughly every 18 months. The answer there, taking into account Moore’s law, was that to solve your problem the fastest, you’d wait until your problem could be solved in 18 months to buy the computers and start the program. From that, I’d guess that you’d want to determine the corresponding “Moore’s Law” for space travel, and send your ship when it will take one doubling time to reach the destination.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/147 "2012-11-24T22:21:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I can’t see how “Flowers for Algernon” could not be considered SF. Charlie’s operation is a scientific advance, and one which has not yet been made, and it’s essential to the story. When a scientific advance which has not yet been made is essential to a story, that sounds like science fiction to me. I’ll take a stab at why not (now that I’ve had a little time to think about it :)). Because there’s only _one_ scientific advance, and it’s only used on a single human. Readily recognizable science fiction typically has multiple scientific advances all over the place: Look at Star Wars, Star Trek, much of the work of the classic Science Fiction authors. You may have a hard-and-fast rule that it only takes one single scientific advance, but people who don’t generally read science fiction may have different rules, even if they can’t readily articulate them. I don’t personally care if it’s called Science Fiction or not, because everything is a continuum. No matter what your criteria are (if you can even get people to agree), there are always going to be boundary cases. This is definitely Sci-Fi, that definitely isn’t, and people will always argue over stuff in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/148 "2012-11-24T22:51:45Z")
Actually, science fiction writers tend to use as a rule of thumb that a short work _should_ only feature a single major scientific premise (exceptions can be made for extremely widespread premises like space travel). Too much more than that, and you end up tripping over explaining all of your premises, and not have any time for the actual story. ---
**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 25, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/149 "2012-11-25T00:57:54Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > 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. From context, you probably mean the Clarke and Baxter novel “The Light of Other Days” and not the Bob Shaw short story “The Light of Other Days” ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/150 "2012-11-25T01:07:53Z")
For Sale Baby Rocket Pack Never worn. ---
**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 25, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/151 "2012-11-25T01:08:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Actually, science fiction writers tend to use as a rule of thumb that a short work _should_ only feature a single major scientific premise (exceptions can be made for extremely widespread premises like space travel). Too much more than that, and you end up tripping over explaining all of your premises, and not have any time for the actual story. Indeed, most of the stories listed in this thread can be summarized in a couple of sentences because they involve only one unusual premise: [ul] [li]There’s a planet that experiences night only once in a thousand years.[/li][li]Someone invents a device that can view any event in the past.[/li][li]Bicycles have an interesting lifecycle[/li][li]A ship on a vital mission has a stowaway that will prevent the mission from being accomplished.[/li][li]A medical treatment vastly increases the intelligence of a previously handicapped man.[/li][li]A series of computers is asked about how entropy can be reversed.[/li][li]A device from the future falls into the hands of children from the present.[/li][/ul] Even in Star Trek, each episode generally only adds one element to the basic “Star Trek” concept, so that many episodes can be described as “The usual Enterprise gang”[ul] [li]encounters superior beings who test them[/li][li]travels to Earth’s past[/li][li]encounters a deadly weapon from a destroyed civilization[/li][li]etc.[/li][/ul] ---
**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 25, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/152 "2012-11-25T01:12:08Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > From context, you probably mean the Clarke and Baxter novel “The Light of Other Days” and not the Bob Shaw short story “The Light of Other Days” P.S. There are a number of short stories that use the same kind of device that’s invented in the Clarke/Baxter novel. ---
**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 25, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/153 "2012-11-25T01:25:35Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > For Sale > Baby Rocket Pack > Never worn. See “That Only A Mother” by Judith Merrill [That Only a Mother - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Only_a_Mother) ---
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/154 "2012-11-25T02:01:02Z")
“[Billenium](http://www.scribd.com/doc/59195995/J-G-Ballard-Billennium)” by J.G. Ballard. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/155 "2012-11-25T02:07:28Z")
People who write science fiction, people who write science fiction criticism, and people who’ve read a lot of science fiction for more than about a decade or so do generally agree that a story with just one scientific innovation is indeed science fiction, and they frequently agree that a science fiction story is often better for having only one innovation in it. If there are other people who think that a single innovation doesn’t qualify a story as being science fiction, they are ignoring the established definition in the field. Now, it’s possible that more recently there are people who want to change the established definition, and it should be understood that definitions do often get changed in that way. However, let’s be clear that what they are doing is changing the established definition and not using the term in the way it’s been used before. Actually, perhaps there is one sort of story where there is just one scientific innovation which according to some people isn’t science fiction. That’s technothrillers: > **[Techno-thriller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller)** > > A techno-thriller or technothriller is a hybrid genre drawing from science fiction, thrillers, spy fiction, action, and war novels. They include a disproportionate amount (relative to other genres) of technical details on their subject matter (typically military technology); only hard science fiction tends towards a comparable level of supporting detail on the technical side. The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines (espionage, martial arts, politics) are thorou... Technothrillers are near future stories where the innovation is usually something with military or espionage connections. The story feels more like a spy novel, a thriller, or a novel about the military than it does like a science fiction novel. It’s almost never labeled as a science fiction novel on its cover or put in science fiction sections in book stores. In any case, let’s be clear about something. Nobody in the science fiction community thought that “Flowers for Algernon” was anything except science fiction when it was published. It was published in a science fiction magazine, it was then anthologized in science fiction anthologies, and it won science fiction awards. Nobody in the science fiction community has ever claimed that it doesn’t fit in the genre. If someone tries to say that it isn’t science fiction, they are adopting a new definition of the genre. Again, it may be true that some people are adopting such a definition, but you should realize that it is a new definition: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?49838](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?49838) ---
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/156 "2012-11-25T02:08:47Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > See “That Only A Mother” by Judith Merrill [That Only a Mother - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Only_a_Mother) There’s a PDF available [here](http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/Sci-Tech-Society/that_only_a_mother.pdf). ---
**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 25, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/157 "2012-11-25T02:24:08Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Actually, perhaps there is one sort of story where there is just one scientific innovation which according to some people isn’t science fiction. That’s technothrillers: > > [Techno-thriller - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller) > > Technothrillers are near future stories where the innovation is usually something with military or espionage connections. The story feels more like a spy novel, a thriller, or a novel about the military than it does like a science fiction novel. It’s almost never labeled as a science fiction novel on its cover or put in science fiction sections in book stores. In addition, technothrillers generally treat the innovation as a prize to be captured or threat to be suppressed; the people in the story are usually not affected by the innovation itself, but are instead affected by the actions of the people who are seeking the prize (or seeking to suppress it). If “Flowers for Algernon” had been about people chasing Charlie Gordon to get the treatment or to kill him so that the treatment would be lost forever (no one in technothrillers makes backups), it would be a technothriller. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/158 "2012-11-25T07:49:30Z")
The Janitor on Mars. What hurts most is that he’s not even a science fiction writer. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/159 "2012-11-25T09:11:41Z")
For what it’s worth, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database considers him a science fiction writer and that story a science fiction story: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?563](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?563) [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?83294](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?83294) ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891/160 "2012-11-25T13:22:24Z")
He’s not primarily an SF writer, but he does sometimes touch upon SF themes. That short story was the best SF I’ve read to date so I had to put it here as an option. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-science-fiction-short-story-ever/286891.md?page=9)