Science Fiction is influential to the world around us, and in turn, short stories are influential to Science Fiction.

Real people invent and make real things straight from the fortune-telling yarns of Science Fiction. The genre can even influence itself. But what’s been the biggest influence on Science Fiction as a whole, one could wonder. To start, what medium has been the most influential on its growth?

Short stories. On average. Over a wide body of work in the 20th century. Part of the challenge in making a superlative listicle thing-a-roo is finding a constraint. So, fancy sounding wins out. We’re going with the good ol’ century modifier.

Saying that, short stories were by far the incubator for Science Fiction of the 20th Century. Of course, you could rebut me by pointing out how Mary Shelley kicked off Science Fiction in the 19th Century with a novel. But from an economic point of view, it’s how Science Fiction survived and thrived.

At the time, short fiction was one of the only paying markets for science fiction. Understandably, that’s where the writers went. But the market found its audience and the rest is history. So, the debt that Science Fiction has to the 20th Century is a debt that Science Fiction has to short fiction.

For the list, We limited ourselves to short stories under 7,500 words. We ensured proper Science Fiction genre classification. Every mention includes a publication date.

Our ranking? Biased. This list is 100 percent displayed in a particular order, yet with no scientific yard stick. You’re bound to disagree, because this list wasn’t easy. So, keep an eye out for your favorites, and if we left any (or all) off, give us a good pitch for why they deserve top 20 ranking.

Honorable Mention #1) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (1972)

This one was tricky. The novel is what we know. But it started as three linked short stories. Of course, we could have picked one of them out and chosen it on a technicality, but we ultimately decided that the novel adaptation shows them to be intrinsically non-standalone.

Honorable Mention #2) Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang (1998)

We would have loved to have put this on the list to really bookend the later part of the 20th century. But it’s a novella. It’s length just didn’t fit the requirements, even though it’s a lightning fast read.

20.) Chronopolis by J.G. Ballard (1960)

Telling time, and time telling devices, have been outlawed for years. But one youngster just can’t help himself from counting the seconds. It turns violent quick, and its ending is an example of how Science Fiction on the page can be strange and mean. Ballard himself is a huge influence on Science Fiction as a whole, with ties to New Wave, and this story in particular helps demonstrate the shift away from squeaky clean narratives in Science Fiction of which Ballard played a part.

19.) Burning Chrome by William Gibson (1982)

The first coining of the term “cyberspace,” and this story already features hackers. If that’s not evidence enough for how ahead of its time Burning Chrome was, ushering in cyberpunk along with the Sprawl trilogy, than maybe you can just appreciate that it’s a cool heist story.

18.) It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby (1953)

Twilight Zone and The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror II” cemented this story in everyone’s memories, even if they never read it. Anthony is three years old with the powers of a god. Everyone has had to placate him since his birth, when he plucked his town out of existence and accidentally held them hostage. He is not malicious. It’s simply that his whims are commands, and his commands are all powerful.

17.) The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

We’re the first to admit this story has an ambiguous genre. It’s got all the feeling of Fantasy at first. But when you get to the reveal in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, it definitely has the feeling one most often associates with Science Fiction. Regardless, it deals full on with psychological and philosophical questions. Since the origin of this land and the mechanism of its system is never explicitly stated, we’re granting it a conditional spot on the 20. Plus, it was first printed in New Dimensions 3, ostensibly a Science Fiction anthology.

16.) The Green Hills of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein (1947)

Both a song and the title of the first story to include the song, telling of its origin, The Green Hills of Earth lives on as a poetry ahead of its time, written before a single picture of the Earth was every broadcast. Astronauts on Apollo 15 themselves remarked how visionary it was for Heinlein to put himself not only into space but into the mind of a poet in space.

15.) The Last Question by Isaac Asimov (1956)

“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.” Isaac Asimov himself considered The Last Question his finest short story, and it’s easy to see why. The question, posed to an evolving supercomputer over the course of eons, is about thermodynamics and entropy. Yet, its answer still manages to make you shed a tear. Imagine.

14.) “Repent Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison (1965)

The concept is similar to that of Justin Timberlake’s In Time, though Ellison dropped his lawsuit after seeing a screening. Except, Repent Harlequin’s concept is that time is taken as a penalty for breaking rules, making the story more a criticism of rigidity and structure than of income gaps. Oh, and it may be a movie of its own soon.

13.) The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (1950)

A mother and father try to get to the bottom of why their kids keep turning the “nursery” (think: holodeck) from a fairy tale land into a hot African veldt teeming with lions in

Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt. A chilling portrait of spoiled children, it raises questions about the true cost of automatization and creature comforts.

12.) The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke (1951)

The precursor to 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Sentinel concerns humans happening upon an alien object left behind on the moon. Was the short story a huge seismic shift for Science Fiction? No. But there are not many Science Fiction properties as influential as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Without this story there’s no Stanley Kubrick movie.

11.) Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler (1983)

Octavia Butler has written several literary works of science fiction and fantasy. In fact, her work seems to cross genre bounds more than most. Speech Sounds is as much about a woman making her way in a dystopian wasteland as it is about race and gender inequality.

10.) To Serve Man by Damon Knight (1950)

To Serve Man is probably most widely known as the inspiration for the Twilight Zone episode of the same name and for “Hungry are the Damned,” the second segment from the original The Simpsons Halloween Special (later Treehouse of Horror). In today’s cynical world, where we wait for the twist, it might not be so modern now, but it was shocking for its time.

9.) I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison (1967)

By far, at least to the person making the list, the most disturbing science fiction on this list. Set in the distant future, an AI spends eternity torturing a group of humans it keeps perpetually alive for that sole purpose. Ellison was part of a movement of his own making. It included these weird, off-putting themes. If golden-age Science Fiction inspired The Twilight Zone, then you could say Ellison’s brand of Science Fiction inspired The Outer Limits.

8.) A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (1952)

Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect and wondered why everyone decided butterflies were the theory’s key insect? It’s because, in the 50s. Ray Bradbury decided it would be so in A Sound of Thunder. A butterfly plays a key role in changing history in this time travel tale about a T-rex safari.

7.) Robbie by Isaac Asimov (1940)

Said to be the first robot story the legend ever penned, Robbie by Isaac Asimov is about a robot that befriends a little girl. What it’s really about is the science fiction community having what Asimov considered an irrational fear of robots. Asimov did a lot to change that, even though we’re trending toward fear nowadays, and this story is the beginning of his brightside approach.

6.) “All You Zombies–” by Robert A. Heinlein (1959)

Paradoxes and more paradoxes. “All You Zombies–” is hard not to spoil. Let’s just say it involves unexpected parentage and time travel. Sure, you might think this one was influential because of, well… zombies. That being the title is what we call an added bonus. No, this one’s real influencing power is in the mind-bending paradox love of the modern time travel story.

5.) There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury (1950)

Probably one of the earliest examples of that creepy melancholy feeling one gets from a humanless world left to run on autopilot, such as in Wall-E or the Fallout games. There is something utterly heartbreaking about the house’s sweet stewardship over its missing family in There Will Come Soft Rains, reminding us that nuclear war doesn’t end with a bang.

4.) The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

Often considered the best science fiction short story of the 20th century, including by this Locus Magazine poll, The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke combines science and spirituality. Of course, what would science fiction writers be if not ardent questioners of life’s biggest questions.

3.) Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson (1981)

No, not the horrible (I still can’t shake liking it) movie. The original short story, which introduced things like heroin-addicted dolphins and prosthetic thumbs with monomolecular wire.” Johnny Mnemonic serves as the precursor to the Sprawl trilogy.

2.) Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)

Harrison Bergeron is terrifying, which is why it’s easy to see why such limitations are put on him. The story raises serious questions about social equality, challenging beliefs but providing no easy answers. It’s widely considered one of the finest Science Fiction short stories of all time.

1.) The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948)

The chilling tale of a lottery you definitely do not want to win rattled a lot of people’s sensitivities for the time. In a style similar to that of a Twilight Zone episode, where the time is indeterminate but it can be assumed to be near future, the story is one of the few science fiction stories that inspire widespread literary study and interpretation to this day.

Okay, we know we missed something. Let us know what we left off, because the reading list doesn’t have to stop here. There’s an entire century of short science fiction to read and recommend. What’s first?