The very best of F&SF
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2026 3:34 am
You'd think in 60 years they'd be able to pick 23 bangers. No such luck.
Introduction / Gordon Van Gelder
-- Of time and Third Avenue / Alfred Bester
-- All summer in a day / Ray Bradbury
-- One ordinary day, with peanuts / Shirley Jackson
-- A touch of strange / Theodore Sturgeon
-- Eastward ho! / William Tenn
-- Flowers for Algernon / Daniel Keyes
-- Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut
-- This moment of the storm / Roger Zelazny
-- The electric ant / Philip K. Dick
-- The deathbird / Harlan Ellison
-- The women men don't see / James Tiptree, Jr.
-- I see you / Damon Knight
-- The gunslinger / Stephen King
-- The dark / Karen Joy Fowler
-- Buffalo / John Kessel
-- Solitude / Ursula K. Le Guin
-- Mother grasshopper / Michael Swanwick
-- macs / Terry Bisson
-- Creation / Jeffrey Ford
-- Other people / Neil Gaiman
-- Two hearts / Peter S. Beagle
-- Journey into the kingdom / M. Rickert
-- The merchant and the alchemist's gate / Ted Chiang.
Ursula K was a standout. King's ' Gunslinger' was not to my liking. PKD's story was pretty good. Ellison's was not. Flowers for Algernon is a fine story of its time but has been reprinted about 100 times and is showing its age.' The women men don't see' has such bizarre characters you'd scarcely believe it was about humans, never mind feminists.
Introduction / Gordon Van Gelder
-- Of time and Third Avenue / Alfred Bester
-- All summer in a day / Ray Bradbury
-- One ordinary day, with peanuts / Shirley Jackson
-- A touch of strange / Theodore Sturgeon
-- Eastward ho! / William Tenn
-- Flowers for Algernon / Daniel Keyes
-- Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut
-- This moment of the storm / Roger Zelazny
-- The electric ant / Philip K. Dick
-- The deathbird / Harlan Ellison
-- The women men don't see / James Tiptree, Jr.
-- I see you / Damon Knight
-- The gunslinger / Stephen King
-- The dark / Karen Joy Fowler
-- Buffalo / John Kessel
-- Solitude / Ursula K. Le Guin
-- Mother grasshopper / Michael Swanwick
-- macs / Terry Bisson
-- Creation / Jeffrey Ford
-- Other people / Neil Gaiman
-- Two hearts / Peter S. Beagle
-- Journey into the kingdom / M. Rickert
-- The merchant and the alchemist's gate / Ted Chiang.
Ursula K was a standout. King's ' Gunslinger' was not to my liking. PKD's story was pretty good. Ellison's was not. Flowers for Algernon is a fine story of its time but has been reprinted about 100 times and is showing its age.' The women men don't see' has such bizarre characters you'd scarcely believe it was about humans, never mind feminists.