Top Short Fiction Collections of 2024
There never seems enough time to read all the great short fiction pouring out into the world — but it’s a wonderful problem to have.
Here are my favorite collections for 2024. Some are newly published. Some are just new to me.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8
Edited by Neil Clarke
This edition was overflowing with talent, one of those rare anthologies where I enjoyed each and every story without exception. Because of this, I had trouble narrowing it down to just my top picks, but under duress, I’ll highlight:
- “Give Me English” by Ai Jiang, a story set in a world where languages are commodified and traded like stocks, in which an immigrant struggling to survive in the United States is forced to sell off her native Chinese and risks becoming a Silent;
- “Mender of Sparrows” by Ray Naylor, a sci-fi spy thriller about a soldier whose consciousness has been transferred into an android body; and
- “Quandry Aminu vs the Butterfly Man” by Rich Larson, about a woman trying to outwit a terrifying monster genetically engineered to hunt and kill her.
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
Edited by Jordan Peele
I love Jordan Peele, so his name alone made me buy this anthology knowing little to nothing else about it. What a wonderful surprise it was, then, to open its pages and be greeted by the work of so many titans of science fiction and fantasy — N.K. Jemisin, Caldwell Turnbull, Tananarive Due, Nnedi Okorador, Nalo Hopkinson, P. Djeli Clark, and Tochi Onyebuchi, just to name a few.
My favorite stories were “Eye and Tooth” by Rebecca Roanhorse and “Invasion of the Baby Snatchers,” by Lesley Nneka Arimah. Roanhorse’s tale of a monster hunt gone wrong manages to be both creepy and heartwarming. Arimah, meanwhile, takes on the very real body horror of pregnancy and kicks it up 12,000 notches by imagining one woman’s race to stop an alien invasion that’s taking us over one womb at a time. Her story is hilarious, gross and chilling, and my only wish is it had been longer. I could have read an entire novel in that alternate version of our world.
Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance
By Tobias S. Buckell
It’s a special thing when you find an author who’s not only talented but prolific, churning out banger after banger as if writing stories was as simple as dreaming. Even more impressive when some of the smallest of his stories contain the biggest of ideas, from what it means to be human in a post-human world to how to fight terrible injustice against impossible odds.
Whether he’s spinning far future tales of a universe where people can turn themselves into immortal space crabs or introducing us to the murderous Gheda, an ultra-capitalist alien society that makes Earth’s most cutthroat billionaires look like a bunch of hippie kindergarten teachers, Buckell’s stories always excite and inspire me. I absolutely tore through this collection. My favorites included the title story, “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,”as well as “A Jar of Goodwill,” and “Sunset.”
Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine & the Diaspora
Edited by Valya Dudyez Lupescu, Olha Brylova and Iryna Pasko
If you’re looking to show your support for artists struggling to make a living during the Russian invasion, or just interested in learning more about Ukrainian culture through the lens of speculative fiction, this collection celebrates the traditional folklore of this proud nation while also looking unflinchingly toward its uncertain future. My favorites included:
- “Closest to the Pole,” by Max Kidruk and translated by Tetiana Savchynska, a beautiful yet brutal tale of Mars polar exploration and self-sacrifice;
- “A Bitter Thing” by N.R.M. Roshak, a wry, human-alien love story (or should I say lust story?) about desire and addiction; and
- “Iron Goddess of Compassion” by Olha Brylova and translated by Anatoly Belilovsky, a story about war, waste, and the staggering cost of unquestioning belief. This last story is so white-hot smart, you may just burn yourself on it.