Seconded. I’ve read (in the MIT SF Society Library) all the Astoundings from 1939 - 1945, and they are astounding indeed. Tons of early Heinlen, good Van Vogt, early Asimove, Kuttner and Moore, de Camp, Sturgeon. Just incredible stuff.
For other things, I fourth Adventures in Time and Space. For particular stories, how about The Star and Sentinel by Clarke, and All You Zombies by Heinlein.
And then there were none by Eric Frank Russell. First published June 1951, Astounding Science Fiction, vol. XLVII, no.4
It’s in one of the anthologies mentioned above. I love this story. So much I can remember the title and google about 30 years after first reading it.
Exapno Mapcase writes:
> There are 80,000 stories with that theme and it doesn’t rate among the top
> half of them.
So name a dozen stories with the same theme that you consider better.
Exapno Mapcase writes:
> Are you nuts putting that story on a 20-best list?
Exapno Mapcase, you’ve been around long enough to know that you don’t call people names anywhere on the SDMB except in the BBQ Pit. If you had said that this was a bad choice, that would be O.K., but what was the point of calling me nuts except to start a flame war? Furthermore, the OP asked for suggestions for good science fiction short stories. It didn’t also ask people to critique the suggestions of others.
I don’t understand why people feel compelled to criticize other’s choices when someone starts a thread asking for lists of favorite things. I very seldom comment on other people’s choices when I contribute to one of those threads (and I regret the few times that I did). Of course, you’re going to disagree with other people’s choices. If you look at anyone’s list of their twenty favorite short stories/novels/movies/songs/paintings/etc., you will always disagree with some of them, regardless of how much both you and the other person know about that field of art. I expect that if I look at a list of someone else’s twenty favorite things from any artistic field (even if both I and the other person are very knowledgeable about the field), I will think maybe five of their choices are truly great, another ten or twelve of them are very good but not really in my top twenty, and the rest aren’t really that good. That’s the way art works. People disagree.
Howzabout John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There”?
De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum - There is no disputing about tastes.
P.S. Evil Captor, reread the OP.
As Exapno says, get the Hall of Fame. That will hook them! Adventures in Time and Space is great too.
I came into this thread with quite a few suggestions, but all have been mentioned above. Maybe next time your turn comes around you can get them to read a bunch of Cordwainer Smith.
One of my favorites is a story by Jack Vance, entitled “The Potters of Firsk”. It may have helped that my parents owned and ran a pottery factory…
Thanks everyone. I knew I would get some really good suggestions. It was kinda disappointing to discover that all these diverse stories I was scouring my library to find copies of are found in one book. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. But the The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, V.I is on it’s way. It’s even currently in print. Thanks to everyone for the recommendation. I realize the Golden Age designation is very arbitrary, but I had to set some kind of limit or I would have a hundred short stories listed. If this goes over well, I’ll pick up with “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” and pick another, more modern bunch. Thanks Exapno for the brief essay, very helpful.
One of my fondest memories is organizing a Short Story Party where we read our choices out loud – most people brought more conventional (non-SF) stories.
But I had to read Light of Other Days by Robert Shaw*. It was in a compillation called “SF14”. From the … 70’s?
*IIRC
Heart-warming, heart-wrenching story that’s based on the existence of “slow glass” --takes a couple of years for light to get through it, which means you can make a batch, set it on a wooded mountaintop for a year, and then install it in your living room window.
Voila, instant view!
Creative idea in a well-written very short piece. With a final twist that left our little group saying “Wow…”(we had the lights out, reading by candlelight – highly recommended).
I’ve read The Third Level by Jack Finney to my kids. Fun time-travel shortie, where a man stumbles into a third underground level to Times Square station, and finds coal-burning locomotives. What his friend does with this revelation is cleverly presented (with another twist at the end).
Hey, you should have a Read Aloud Short SF Party – and anyone whose book you use gets an invitation (just kidding – keep it small).
Close. It’s Bob Shaw and SF12.
And lots of other places.
The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase is an excellent resource to check these details.
Exapno Mapcase,
I’m still waiting for a list from you of a dozen short stories with the same theme as “If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy” that you consider to be better than that story.
Let me start by saying “All You Zombies-” is a wonderful time-travel SS. It might possibly be THE best ever time-travel SS. However (and you KNEW there had to be a “however” after that, right?) I am not sure that it’s the best choice to present to a bunch of people who don’t read SF as a rule. If the readers are somewhat socially conservative, I’d really advise against it. Just start them off with “By His Bootstraps”, which is already in the anthology and is a very fine story too.
And good work, Lao Tsu. You’re doing your group a real favor.
No, “All You Zombies–” is the second best time travel story ever. “By his Own Bootstraps” is better. But I’m not sure how well any good time travel story would play with folks not accustomed to SF: The rules are rather unique to such stories. It might be easier to introduce space stories or robot stories, since they’re closer to our everyday experience.