The Best Science Fiction Short Stories I Read in 2022 ... and where you can read them.
Okay. Before we begin, let’s define what I’m talking about.
In 2022, I read 35 groups of stories: anthologies, single-author collections, and slates of award finalists. This amounted to hundreds of stories.
This list includes some of my favorites:
Read by me in 2022. Not necessarily published in 2022
Only stories that were new to me. I reread many all-time classics this year, but want to really shine the light on stories that are less likely to be well known.
With each short story, I’ll list where I read it, a link to my review of that volume, and a link to where you could buy that book.
Hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did. They are listed in the chronological order that I read them this year.
Aliens! edited by Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/aliens
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
A reporter meets a ragged worker at a spaceport who tells about how fascination with aliens has lead to his ruin …. and will lead to the ruin of humanity. Brilliantly written with incredible things to say about humanity, culture, sexual addiction, and much more.
Asimov’s Science Fiction - 36th Annual Readers’ Awards
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/asf36th
Año Nuevo – Ray Nayler
On the California coastal beach of Año Nuevo, large aliens have lain without doing anything. Then one morning they are gone … and it changes everything. A gentle and sublime tale that is as much about mood and character as the very big Science Fictional idea at its center.
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
The Liberation of Earth • (1953) • short story by William Tenn
Absolute brutal satire of Cold War justifications for foreign intervention, retold as an alien invasion story.
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) • [Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego / From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy] • (1981) • short story by Stanisław Lem? (trans. of Ratujmy kosmos 1964)
Hilarious and masterful. Ijon Tichy reports on the effects of exploitation and tourism on the solar system. Some highlights are the strange animals that prey on unwary tourists.
Bloodchild • (1984) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
A visceral and amazing story of the bond between humans and an insect-like race. A young boy who is to be host for the aliens offspring is forced to help with an emergency c-section on a pregnant man who is being eaten from within by the aliens larva. Powerful, complex, horrifying, and strangely realistic. With overtones of slavery and colonial oppression.
Ribofunk: Stories. By Paul di Filippo
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/ribofunk
One Night in Television City • (1990) • short story by Paul Di Filippo.
A chaotic urban tour through a baroquely inventive world of biotech body (and everything) modification. Every line has a new inventive bit of wordplay or SF future speculation. The story is your basic “low life dude ends up on the wrong side of some dangerous people and has to try to hide and get his bearings,” but the dense dive into this wild world is what makes this a great story.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty First Annual Collection. edited by Gardner Dozois
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/dozois21
The Ice • (2003) • novella by Steven Popkes.
The story starts with the silly premise in which a young man discovers that he is the illegal clone of Hockey Legend Gordie Howe. It ripples into a deeply human story of love, death, privilege, disadvantage, identity, family, perseverance, and just the very nature of what makes up a life. I cannot overstate how deep and human this is.
Clones! edited by Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/clones
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang • (1974) • novella by Kate Wilhelm.
The world is ravaged by pollution, pandemics, chaos, violence, and infertility. One family hides themselves away in a bunker and surreptitiously creates a generation of clones as the only hope of keeping humanity alive. When the clone generation comes of age, they are culturally different than anyone expected. An absolute masterpiece with living characters, a terrifyingly plausible vision of dystopia, and smart storytelling at every step of the plot.
The 2022 Hugo Award Finalists: Novellas
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/2022hugonovellas
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers
There is a beautiful trope from Golden Age Science Fiction in which two characters illustrate the differences between human and alien thought through a series of conversations. This story is a modern take on that idea and does it exceptionally well. Our main character is a nonbinary monk who feels lost and leaves to become a Tea Monk, but finds that unfulfilling and starts exploring deeper into the Wild, painting an interesting picture of this world. Halfway through the tale, they will meet the other main character [which I won’t spoil] and there is a beautiful shift in the story’s tone. Chambers has created a warm and comfortable science fiction novella that does everything right.
The Great SF Stories: Volume 8: 1946. edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/greatsf1946
A Logic Named Joe • (1946) • short story by Murray Leinster [as by Will F. Jenkins].
Logics [which read today as home computers] interconnect every home. An anomaly on the assembly line creates one with consciousness and tries to solve every problem asked of it. But the brilliance of a ‘computer processor’ given access to the world’s information leads to devastating results. Asimov call this prescient in his 1982 introduction, but it is only more applicable to 2022’s world of computers, algorithms, and social media….and now ChatGPT.
Around Distant Suns: Stories Inspired by the St Andrews Centre for Exoplanet Science. edited by Emma Puranen.
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/arounddistantsuns
A Momentary Brightening. by Laura Muetzelfeldt with Dr Martin Dominik. 2022
A nocturnally beautiful story that speaks to the quiet simple work of astronomy and the euphoria of a new discovery. At a Chilean Observatory, a scientist heads into work and contemplates his relationship with his son and the absence of his wife. Wistful. Peaceful. Hopeful. Human. This reminds me of the best of Steven Utley’s stories and is single-handedly worth the price of the book.
The Best of the Best, Volume 2: 20 Years of the Best Short Science Fiction Novels. edited by Gardner Dozois
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/dozoisshortnovels2
Surfacing • (1988) • novella by Walter Jon Williams.
A slow-burn novella about a deeply broken man attempting to communicate with “Dwellers” - huge life below the ocean of an alien planet - and using transplanted whales to do so. Mix in some very toxic romance and aliens that can take over the bodies of people. A really immersive story that I found enthralling.
The World Turned Upside Down. edited by Jim Baen, David Drake, & Eric Flint.
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/worldturnedupsidedown
Thunder and Roses • (1947) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon.
A bleak and disturbing story of a USA devastated by nuclear war. The characters are severely broken, suicidal, and cling to the tiniest hint of humanity. This is includes a musical performance by a woman, but tonight after singing she has something difficult to say. “We have the power to retaliate and destroy our enemy, but we must choose not to!”
Beyond the Stars: Infinite Expanse: a space opera anthology. edited by Patrice Fitzgerald
https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/beyondthestars
Coffin Rider • (2020) • short story by James Rossiter
An old soldier tells us his memories of a significant battle against ‘the bugs.’ What a wide-screen cinematic Space Opera this is! Helpless soldiers in clear ‘coffins’ are ejected as an invasion force, knowing that most will die, but some with survive by the grace of sheer numbers. Infantry combat on a lush colorful planet that keeps getting disrupted by rampaging space-rhinos and space-storks. This is great stuff, but what makes it exceptional are the brief digressions of the price, nature, and random aspects of war. With a surprisingly poignant final line.
