# The 22 Greatest Sci-Fi Short Story Collections

> Golden Age robot parables share shelf space with cyberpunk manifestos and twenty-first-century stories that swept the awards. Short fiction is where the genre does its boldest thinking.

*By YPB Team · Published October 27, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-22-greatest-sci-fi-short-story-collections*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Stories of Your Life and Others** — score 1000/1000
   Ted Chiang's 2002 debut collection, home of the novella that became the film Arrival.
2. **The Rediscovery of Man** — score 681/1000
   The complete short science fiction of Cordwainer Smith and his strange far-future Instrumentality.
3. **I, Robot** — score 622/1000
   Isaac Asimov's 1950 linked collection of robot stories that introduced the Three Laws of Robotics.
4. **To Hold Up the Sky** — score 551/1000
   Liu Cixin's 2020 English collection of grand-scale Chinese hard science fiction.
5. **I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream** — score 551/1000
   Harlan Ellison's 1967 collection led by his chilling tale of a vengeful supercomputer.
6. **The Wind's Twelve Quarters** — score 551/1000
   Ursula K. Le Guin's 1975 collection including The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
7. **Her Smoke Rose Up Forever** — score 466/1000
   The definitive collection of James Tiptree Jr., including The Women Men Don't See.
8. **Fire Watch** — score 466/1000
   Connie Willis's 1985 collection whose Hugo- and Nebula-winning title story began her Oxford time-travel series.
9. **The Science Fiction Hall of Fame** — score 466/1000
   The 1970 anthology of the best pre-Nebula stories, chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
10. **Axiomatic** — score 466/1000
   Greg Egan's 1995 collection of hard-SF stories about identity, consciousness and physics.
11. **The Cyberiad** — score 466/1000
   Stanisław Lem's 1965 comic stories about two robot constructors who build impossible machines.
12. **Driftglass** — score 363/1000
   Samuel R. Delany's 1971 collection including the Nebula winner Aye, and Gomorrah.
13. **The Paper Menagerie** — score 363/1000
   Ken Liu's 2016 collection whose title story swept the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards.
14. **Exhalation** — score 362/1000
   Ted Chiang's 2019 collection of philosophical stories about free will, time and machine minds.
15. **Invisible Planets** — score 362/1000
   Ken Liu's 2016 anthology that introduced Chinese science fiction to English readers.
16. **The Martian Chronicles** — score 362/1000
   Ray Bradbury's 1950 cycle of stories about the human colonization of Mars.
17. **Welcome to the Monkey House** — score 362/1000
   Kurt Vonnegut's 1968 collection featuring the dystopian classic Harrison Bergeron.
18. **The Illustrated Man** — score 0/1000
   Ray Bradbury's 1951 collection framed by a tattooed man whose living tattoos each tell a story.
19. **Burning Chrome** — score 0/1000
   William Gibson's 1986 collection of cyberpunk stories, including Johnny Mnemonic.
20. **Bloodchild and Other Stories** — score 0/1000
   Octavia E. Butler's collection led by her Hugo- and Nebula-winning title story.
21. **The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke** — score 0/1000
   Every Clarke short story in one volume, from The Sentinel to The Nine Billion Names of God.
22. **How Long 'til Black Future Month?** — score 0/1000
   N. K. Jemisin's 2018 collection of speculative stories spanning futures, cities and myths.

Tags: books, sci-fi, classics, fiction, short stories