The Sci-Fi short stories in this list of short story collections are the best ever written, based on user reviews and sales figures.
For sci-fi book fans who have too many things going on in their life to be able to sit down for hours at a time, the solution is a great short story book.
1. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov wrote this classic collection of stories as the first in his Robot novel series. It deals with the relationships between human and robot. It introduced the Three Laws of Robotics that have set the standard for the use of robots in science fiction. In fact, Asimov was the acknowledged creator of the term “robotics.”
2. The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury wrote these short stories in the late 1940s at a time when we knew almost nothing about Mars. This book is not a novel per se, but rather a collection of separately linked stories that chronicle, in about as many ways as you can imagine, Man’s experiences with Mars
3. Stories of Your Life and Others – Ted Chiang
Stories of Your Life and Others is a wonderful collection of short stories. It’s engaging, intelligent, well researched, creative, and puzzling among many other reasons why you should read this book.
4. Burning Chrome – William Gibson
This is an amazing short story collection whose common denominator is the quality of the writing. This collection really shows just how much William Gibson has done to take Science Fiction to a whole new level.
5. Dangerous Visions: 33 Original Stories – Harlan Ellison
Some of these stories are downright shocking, some are bizarre, and some have the great social commentary and human drama that most sci-fi writers would kill to be capable of.
6. Axiomatic: Short Stories of Science Fiction – Greg Egan
Axiomatic is utterly fascinating and mind-blowing. The stories are wonderfully original and distinct, but two philosophic threads tie them together. The stories explore questions of determinism and free will or questions of where our identity resides and what are its irreducible components.
7. Welcome to the Monkey House: Stories – Kurt Vonnegut
This is a collection of rich, wonderfully written stories about a wide assortment of subjects. Kurt Vonnegut is a great writer, pure and simple. Many of the stories deal with the future and the state of society, and blended with Vonnegut’s somewhat cynical yet witty view of the subject.
8. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick – Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick manages to incorporate the fears and projections of his era (such as the angst of nuclear holocaust) and distill it all in a remarkable collection of short stories. The stories are dynamic and this collection is an excellent way to get to know the works of Phillip K. Dick.
