Best Short stories

The 54 highest-rated Short stories, scored from 16K reader ratings.

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Sort byDecadeMinimum ratingsAdaptation54 results

By year of first publication, 1387–2026. The busiest stretch is 1950–1999, with 25. Select a bar to narrow the list.

1
8.48.4 / 10
Stories of Your Life and OthersTed Chiang1.2K ratingsTed Chiang’s “Stories of Your Life and Others” gathers eight pieces of science fiction and fantasy that handle large ideas with rare care.Our view
2
8.48.4 / 10
FiccionesJorge Luis Borges335 ratings“Ficciones” packs a great deal of thought into fewer than two hundred pages; it is the book that made Borges’s name worldwide.Our view
3
8.28.2 / 10
I, RobotIsaac Asimov1.7K ratingsA collection to read for its ideas rather than for a plot.Our view

Why Stories of Your Life and Others is #1

Stories of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang) scores 8.4/10 from 1.2K ratings — level with Ficciones at one decimal, and ahead on the exact score.

The score is a weighted average across 3 independent rating sources. A title with few ratings is pulled toward the category average, so a handful of enthusiastic reviews cannot outrank a book that thousands of readers have judged. To keep the list varied, the top 20 holds at most two books from one series and three by one author; the rest follow further down. Method →