Fifty Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories

(alphabetically by author, restricting myself to one story per writer, and adopting a narrow definition of SF&F)

 

  1. “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham

  2. “The Voices of Time” by J.G. Ballard

  3. “The Last Song of Sirit Byar” by Peter S. Beagle

  4. “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson

  5. “A Work of Art” by James Blish

  6. “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury

  7. “The Monster” by Scott Bradfield

  8. “Why We Built a Teleportation Machine and Why It Was a Bad Idea: Marcus Landers’ Oral History About the Invention of the World’s First Matter Transference Device” by James Brubaker

  9. “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler

  10. “Home on the Rain” by Jonathan Carroll

  11. “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” by Ted Chiang

  12. “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke

  13. “The Ladies of Grace Adieu” by Susanna Clarke

  14. “Going Small” by Jacob C. Cockcroft

  15. “Gone” by John Crowley

  16. “Or All the Seas with Oysters” by Avram Davidson

  17. “The Tale of Gorgik” by Samuel R. Delany

  18. “Second Variety” by Philip K. Dick

  19. “Oceanic” by Greg Egan

  20. “The New Mother” by Eugene Fischer

  21. “Daltharee” by Jeffrey Ford

  22. “Reader’s Guide” by Lisa Goldstein

  23. “Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold” by Theodora Goss

  24. “When Time Travel—Both Ways—Became Easy and Cheap” by Jennifer A. Howard

  25. “The Inner City” by Karen Heuler

  26. “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  27. “Spar” by Kij Johnson

  28. “Search Continues for Elderly Man” by Laura Kasischke

  29. “Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance” by John Kessel

  30. “Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal” by Stanislaw Lem

  31. “Catskin” by Kelly Link

  32. “Sandkings” by George R. R. Martin

  33. “Behold the Man” by Michael Moorcock

  34. “Remote Control” by Nnedi Okarafor

  35. “The Dummy” by Benjamin Percy

  36. “Little Gods” by Tim Pratt

  37. “7C” by Jason Roberts

  38. “Souls” by Joanna Russ

  39. “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter” by Lucius Shepard

  40. “The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon

  41. “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky

  42. “Echo” by Walter Tevis

  43. “The Man Who Walked Home” by James Tiptree, Jr.

  44. “Treading the Maze” by Lisa Tuttle

  45. “When They Came to Us” by Debbie Urbanski

  46. “The Situation” by Jeff VanderMeer

  47. “The Persistence of Vision” by John Varley

  48. “Unready to Wear” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

  49. “The Things” by Peter Watts

  50. “The Heat Death of the Universe” by Pamela Zoline

— June 10, 2022


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