Top 6+ Science Fiction Short Story Collections (2026)

Science fiction short story collections are the fastest way to experience the full range of the genre — a single volume can take you from first contact to far-future dystopia to parallel dimensions, all before breakfast. Whether you're a longtime SF reader who wants to keep up with the sharpest new voices or a newcomer looking for a gateway into the genre, the right short story collection is the perfect starting point.

This list highlights the best science fiction short story collections available today, from the annual Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy series — hand-curated each year by a headline author — to the legendary Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine retrospective, and the internationally acclaimed Writers of the Future anthology that has been discovering tomorrow's stars since 1983.

What Are The Best Science Fiction Short Story Collections?

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 42, by Jody Lynn Nye & Orson Scott Card (eds.) (2026)

Created and endowed by L. Ron Hubbard, the Writers of the Future Contest has been called “the bestselling science fiction anthology series of all time” — and volume 42 shows exactly why. Stories in this illustrated edition are selected blind by an all-star judging panel that includes Brandon Sanderson, Hugh Howey, Orson Scott Card, Nnedi Okorafor, Larry Niven, and Robert J. Sawyer, among others. With no entry fee and cash prizes paid at professional rates, it's one of the fairest and most prestigious launching pads in the genre.

The result is a collection brimming with fresh, unfiltered imagination — debut authors writing without fear alongside mentorship essays from the field's biggest names. Critics call it “a perennial glimpse of tomorrow's stars” and “a must-have for the genre reader,” and after forty-two volumes, that reputation is fully earned. If you want to discover the next generation of science fiction writers before everyone else does, start here.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024, by Hugh Howey & John Joseph Adams (eds.) (2024)

The author of the Silo series takes the guest editor's chair for this installment, selecting what he calls “dangerous stories — the kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world.” The twenty stories collected here span near-future SF, high fantasy, and slipstream, united by Howey's instinct for fiction that takes genuine risks with form and idea.

Series editor John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey make an exceptional pairing, and this edition ranks among the most adventurous in the series' history. If you want to understand what is genuinely exciting contemporary SF readers and critics, this is your entry point.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023, by R. F. Kuang & John Joseph Adams (eds.) (2023)

Guest-edited by Babel and Yellowface author R. F. Kuang, this volume is built around the idea that great short fiction demands a willingness to get weird. “Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick,” Kuang writes in her introduction — and the strange, otherworldly stories she selected prove the point on every page.

Kuang's editorial vision gives the collection a strong thematic coherence around identity, transformation, and the uncanny. The result is one of the most memorable and intellectually daring volumes in the series, with every story landing the trick of making you care about a wholly alien world in just a few pages.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, by Rebecca Roanhorse & John Joseph Adams (eds.) (2022)

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse brings her acclaimed eye for voice and representation to twenty stories exploring what it means to be human. The collection spans the genre's full range — from hard SF to mythic fantasy — reflecting a readership hungry for ambitious ideas, diverse perspectives, and emotional truth told through speculative fiction.

Roanhorse's edition is a testament to how expansive and vital science fiction has become. Every story here feels both timely and timeless, grounded in the human experience even when set across galaxies or in worlds utterly unlike our own. One of the strongest entries in this long-running series.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, by Diana Gabaldon & John Joseph Adams (eds.) (2020)

The mega-bestselling author of the Outlander series brings a distinctly literary sensibility to her guest-editorship of this volume, selecting stories that reflect readers' growing appetite for diverse voices, perspectives, and styles alongside the classic desire for spaceships and magic. The twenty stories here are by turns intimate and epic, grounded and wildly inventive.

Gabaldon's edition captures a moment of real openness in science fiction and fantasy — a genre willing to experiment while holding onto what makes it irresistible. It's an excellent snapshot of the SFF short fiction landscape at the start of the decade, and a perfect companion to the more recent volumes in the series.

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: 30th Anniversary Anthology, by Sheila Williams (ed.) (2007)

Spanning three decades of the most influential science fiction magazine ever published, this anniversary retrospective gathers seventeen essential stories from the legendary pages of Asimov's. Authors like Jonathan Lethem, Kelly Link, Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, and Isaac Asimov himself appear alongside newer voices like Charles Stross — the collection reads as a history of modern SF in miniature.

Editor Sheila Williams has assembled a volume that doubles as the finest single introduction to the short fiction tradition that shaped the genre. Publishers Weekly called it “a superlative collection” where “every piece is a nugget of pure science-fiction gold” — and nearly two decades on, that verdict still holds for any reader who wants to understand where today's science fiction comes from.

Final thoughts on science fiction short story collections

The best science fiction short story collections do two things at once: they introduce you to writers you'll follow for the rest of your career, and they show you the full, wild range of what the genre can do. Whether you start with the contest-winning newcomers in Writers of the Future, the headline-author-curated Best American series, or the timeless retrospective from Asimov's, each book on this list is a doorway into dozens of unforgettable worlds. Pick one up — the next story you read might introduce you to your new favorite author.