1. Rose for Ecclesiastes – Roger Zelazny
A poet from Earth learns the Martian secrets, falls in love with a Martian woman, convinces the Martians to lose their fatalism and care about their future (just like in the Book of Ecclesiastes) but eventually has to learn that the woman he loves was just playing her part in a prophecy which he did not know about. The protagonist understands that he did not really believe his own arguments and only did it for the woman. Seeing his own hubris, he tries to kill himself, survives and returns to Earth.
2. The Little Black Bag – C. M. Kornbluth
A doctor’s bag travels from the future into our time. It is found by a former doctor with an alcohol problem and a woman of little means. The tools, needles and pills in the bag help both to cure patients of all kinds of diseases. Eventually, the doctor wants to hand over the bag to academics and the woman decides to kill him. Having murdered someone with the bag, the bag — along with the tools it contains — loses its wondrous capabilities. So the woman accidentally kills herself when she intends to demonstrate how harmless one of the bag’s scalpels is. Very well-written.
3. The Quest for Saint Aquin – Anthony Boucher
In a world where religions are prohibited, the secret pope asks Thomas to find the legendary miraculously never decaying corpse of Saint Aquin, hoping to win new followers. It turns out that Saint Aquin’s corpse does not decay because he has not been human. At first dismayed, Thomas realized that if a robot, with its perfect logic, believed in God, others can be convinced of God’s existence, too. The parallel to the historical Thomas Aquinas is obvious.
4. Microcosmic God – Theodore Sturgeon
A genius scientist grows a fast-living small species which eventually becomes highly civilized and can build anything the scientist asks them to. This comes in handy when the scientist needs to defend himself against the greedy interests of a banker.
5. Fondly Fahrenheit – Alfred Bester
Gripping thriller about a human and his highly valuable android who kills even though it is not supposed to be able to. At first the owner suspects that the android’s defect might be related to heat. Toward the end, however, it becomes clear that the human projects his wishes and thoughts onto the android. This also explain the often confusing change of perspective. The first-person narrator changes constantly — sometimes within one sentence.
6. Twilight – John Campbell
A gripping story without much dialogue about mankind in the 31st century who inhabits large parts of the universe but lost the one thing that made them great: curiosity. Surrounded by incredibly advanced machines people have forgotten how to use or build them, living in the twilight of their civilizations.
7. Mimsy Were the Borogoves – Lewis Padgett
What if toys from the future reached our times? The spouses Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore describe how a brother and a sibling reach through toys from the future another dimension/time.
8. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
A simple-minded janitor takes part in an experiment which makes him highly intelligent. He realizes that his “friends” had ridiculed him for being dumb. Also his sudden intelligence alienates him from everyone else. When he discovers that he will lose his intelligence (just like the test mouse “Algernon”), he analyzes his own situation scientifically but finds that there is no hope. The protagonist documents his progress and decline in reports. The spelling and word choice reflects both.
9. The Roads Must Roll – Robert Heinlein
In a world where transport depends on fast moving conveyor belts the cast system of engineers and technicians is severely disturbed after the latter start a revolt which eventually fails.
10. First Contact – Murray Leinster
A sort of prisoners’ dilemma in space: Humans meet an alien species somewhere in space, both far from their homes. They make contact, want to learn from each other (the aliens for example communicate not through sound but shortwave transmission) but neither wants to reveal where their respective homes are in case the other species bears ill intentions. Both civilizations have the same idea to win the other over with extorsion. Eventually it is decided that both civilizations will return to their homes in the spaceship of the other.
11. Scanners Live in Vain – Cordwainer Smith
Due to “Great Pain of Space”, humans may only travel through space in artificial hibernation. Only habermans (surgically altered ex convicts who do not feel anything anymore) can control the ship. They are controlled by scanners who have undergone the same procedure voluntarily. The scanners disagree on how to deal with a scientist who has found a way to circumvent the Great Pain, rendering their prestigious role in society superfluous. Smith’s imagination regarding the setting is impressive.
12. Arena – Fredric Brown
Avoiding a bloody war between mankind and an alien species a third superior species picks two representatives and has them fight under unknown conditions against each other in an arena. The human wins.
13. Surface Tension – James Blish
On a mission to populate the universe, a crew crashes on a planet which consists mostly of water. Before they die they create a new human-like civilization which lives under water and is microscopic. Just like Moses, the crew provides them with plates which explain their origin. The water civilization who can breathe through their quills underwater build a “space ship” to travel from one pond to the next, beginning to realize how large the world(s) outside of their own home must be. A refreshing change of perspective.
14. Mars is Heaven! – Ray Bradburry
Martian trick a crew from Earth into believing that their long lost relatives live on Mars, gaining their trust before killing them.
15. The Weapon Shop – A. E. van Vogt
A stern follower of the Empress, the ruler of the solar system, is upset by a weapon shop set up in his town. It turns out that the weapon shop is part of a large resistance movement against the Empress, who is not as benign as many people think. Toward the end the former follower realizes his mistakes and quietly joins the resistance.
16. The Cold Equations – Tom Godwin
An officer has to kill a young woman who secretly joined him on a mission to provide important medicine to humans on a distant planet because there is not enough fuel for both.
17. Coming Attraction – Fritz Leiber
A noir story about a woman who asks a foreigner for help from an abusive lover. When he knocks down her boyfriend, he realizes that the woman has been enjoying to seduce him like others before but never intended to leaver her boyfriend whose abuse she craves.
18. The Country of the Kind – Damon Knight
In a world of kind people, one person lacking empathy wreaks havoc. To protect others from harm, he is consistently ostracized which leads him to desperately try to convince others to follow his destructive example.
19. The Nine Billion Names of God – Arthur Clarke
Using modern technology, Tibetan monks try to list all possible names of god which would bring the world to an end, according to their belief.
20. A Martian Odyssey – Stanley Weinbaum
Weinbaum’s take on a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man: the friendly Tweel.
21. Nightfall – Isaac Asimov
What would happen if people could see the stars only once every thousand years because there are several suns in the sky? According to Asimov, the society would destroy itself every thousand years. The world is described with certain astronomical rigour but the dialogue and plot is at times not very convincing.
22. It’s a Good Life – Jermoe Bixby
Anthony has paranormal powers, including mind reading. During his birth he cut off his village from the rest of the world. Afraid of his powers, the remaining villagers try to please him and avoid conflict by not mentioning/thinking anything negative in his presence.
23. Huddling Places – Clifford Simak
An expert doctor on the Martian brain is asked to help a Martian friend. He is highly opposed to leave his idyll on Earth, decides to help a friend but misses the flight to Mars due to a misunderstanding.
24. That Only a Mother – Judith Merril
A mother is in denial about her child being born without any limbs due to radiation in World War III.
25. Born of a Man and Woman – Richard Matheson
A first-person short story about a misfit who is kept from the public eye and eventually rebels against their parents.
26. Helen O’Loy – Lester del Rey
A man falls in love with a roboter, who does not believe herself to be one anymore. They marry and grow old together.