A couple of years ago, Ann and Jeff Vandermeer put out a request for recommendations: they were putting together a survey anthology of short science fiction stories, and it would be a massive project. Their work is now complete: The Big Book of Science Fiction will be released in July, and they’ve told us what will be included in the book.




This is going to be a massive tome, one that clocks in at 1,200 pages and more than 750,000 words, which Vintage believes is the single largest book of its type. After requesting stories, the Vandermeers got to work, combing through hundreds of anthologies and submitted stories.


The anthology covers an impressive breadth of the genre as well: the earliest story represented is (Update: Wells’ story is the earliest) H.G. Wells’, “The Star,” from 1897, and runs all the way up to 2002's story from Johanna Sinisalo, “Baby Doll”. 97 stories make up everything in between, including the likes of Clifford D. Simak, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Bruce Sterling, while some lesser-known authors, such as Edmond Hamilton, Katherine MacLean, and others are included.

There’s also some curious omissions here: I don’t see anything by Robert Heinlein, Nancy Kress, C.L. Moore, Francis Stevens, and some others that I expected to see. It’s not entirely surprising, given the length of the book.

Update 9:00pm: Jeff Vandermeer wrote in to note that Heinlein’s works weren’t included due to the Heinlein estate’s restrictions on reprinting his stories.


What is most exciting about this list is the fact that it’s including a range of stories from outside of the English language, with some stories being translated for the first time. Authors from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain and the Ukraine are all included.

Here’s the entire list of the stories that will be included.



Note: this isn’t the finalized table of contents, but a listing in alphabetical order.


[first translation = never in English before; new translation = a new translation of a previously translated story; translation = acquisition of an existing translation]

Yoshio Aramaki, “Soft Clocks” 1968 (Japan) – translated by Kazuko Behrens and stylized by Lewis Shiner



Juan José Arreola, “Baby H.P.” 1952 (Mexico) – new translation by Larry Nolen



Isaac Asimov, “The Last Question” 1956



J.G. Ballard, “The Voices of Time” 1960



Iain M. Banks, “A Gift from the Culture” 1987



Jacques Barbéri, “Mondo Cane” 1983 (France) – first translation by Brian Evenson



John Baxter, “The Hands” 1965



Barrington J. Bayley, “Sporting with the Chid” 1979



Greg Bear, “Blood Music” 1983



Dmitri Bilenkin, “Crossing of the Paths” 1984 – new translation by James Womack



Jon Bing, “The Owl of Bear Island” 1986 (Norway) - translation



Adolfo Bioy Casares, “The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink” 1962 (Argentina) - new translation by Marian Womack



Michael Bishop, “The House of Compassionate Sharers” 1977



James Blish, “Surface Tension” 1952



Michael Blumlein, “The Brains of Rats” 1990



Jorge Luis Borges, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” 1940 (Argentina) – translation by Andrew Hurley



Ray Bradbury, “September 2005: The Martian” 1949



David R. Bunch, “Three From Moderan” 1959, 1970



Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” 1984



Pat Cadigan, “Variations on a Man” 1984



André Carneiro, “Darkness” 1965 (Brazil) – translation by Leo L. Barrow



Stepan Chapman, “How Alex Became a Machine” 1996



C.J. Cherryh, “Pots” 1985



Ted Chiang, “The Story of Your Life” 1998



Arthur C. Clarke, “The Star” 1955



John Crowley, “Snow” 1985



Samuel R. Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah” 1967



Philip K. Dick, “Beyond Lies the Wub” 1952



Cory Doctorow, “Craphound” 1998



W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Comet” 1920



Jean-Claude Dunyach, “Paranamanco” 1987 (France) – translation by Sheryl Curtis



S. N. Dyer, “Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead” 1984



Harlan Ellison, “‘Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktock Man” 1965



Carol Emshwiller, “Pelt” 1958



Paul Ernst, “The Microscopic Giants” 1936



Karen Joy Fowler, “The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things” 1985



Sever Gansovsky, “Day of Wrath” 1964 (Ukraine) – new translation by James Womack



William Gibson, “New Rose Hotel” 1984



Angélica Gorodischer, “The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets” 1973 (Argentina) – first translation by Marian Womack

Edmond Hamilton, “The Star Stealers” 1929



Han Song, “Two Small Birds” 1988 (China) – first translation by John Chu



Alfred Jarry, “The Elements of Pataphysics” 1911 (re-translation by Gio Clairval; France)



Gwyneth Jones, “The Universe of Things” 1993



Langdon Jones, “The Hall of Machines” 1968



Kaijo Shinji, “Reiko’s Universe Box” 1981 (Japan) – translation by Toyoda



Takashi and Gene van Troyer



Gérard Klein, “The Monster” 1958 (France) – translation by Damon Knight



Damon Knight, “Stranger Station” 1956



Leena Krohn, “The Gorgonoids” 1992 (Finland) – translation by Hildi Hawkins



R.A. Lafferty, “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” 1966



Kojo Laing, “Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ” 1992 (Ghana)



Geoffrey A. Landis, “Vacuum States” 1988



Tanith Lee, “Crying in the Rain” 1987



Ursula K. Le Guin, “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” 1971



Stanisław Lem, “Let Us Save the Universe” 1981 (Poland) – translation by Joel Stern and Maria Swiecicka-Ziemianek



Cixin Liu, “The Poetry Cloud” 1997 (China) – translation by Chi-yin Ip and Cheuk Wong



Katherine MacLean, “The Snowball Effect” 1952



Geoffrey Maloney, “Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System” 1995



George R.R. Martin, “Sandkings” 1979



Michael Moorcock, “The Frozen Cardinal” 1987



Pat Murphy, “Rachel in Love” 1987



Misha Nogha, “Death is Static Death is Movement” 1990



Silvina Ocampo, “The Waves” 1959 (Argentina) – first translation by Marian Womack



Chad Oliver, “Let Me Live in a House” 1954



Manjula Padmanabhan, “Sharing Air” 1984 (India)



Frederick Pohl, “Day Million” 1966



Rachel Pollack, “Burning Sky” 1989



Robert Reed, “The Remoras” 1994



Kim Stanley Robinson, “Before I Wake”1989



Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” 1972



Josephine Saxton, “The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky” 1981



Paul Scheerbart, “The New Abyss” 1911 (Germany) – first translation by Daniel Ableev and Sarah Kaseem



James H. Schmitz, “Grandpa” 1955



Vadim Shefner, “A Modest Genius” 1965 (Russia) –translation by Matthew J. O’Connell



Robert Silverberg, “Good News from the Vatican” 1971



Clifford D. Simak, “Desertion” 1944



Johanna Sinisalo, “Baby Doll” 2002 (Finland) – translation by David Hackston



Cordwainer Smith, “The Game of Rat and Dragon” 1955



Margaret St. Clair, “Prott” 1985



Bruce Sterling, “Swarm” 1982



Karl Hans Strobl, “The Triumph of Mechanics” 1907 (Germany) – first translation by Gio Clairval



Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, “The Visitors” 1958 (Russia) – new translation by James Womack



Theodore Sturgeon, “The Man Who Lost the Sea” 1959



William Tenn, “The Liberation of Earth” 1953



William Tenn, “Ghost Standard” 1994



James Tiptree, Jr., “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” 1972



Tatyana Tolstoya, “The Slynx” 2000 (Russia) – translation byJamey Gambrell



Yasutaka Tsutsui, “Standing Woman” 1974 (Japan) – translation by Dana Lewis



Lisa Tuttle, “Wives” 1979



Miguel de Unamuno, “Mechanopolis” 1913 (Spain) – new translation by Marian Womack



Élisabeth Vonarburg, “Readers of Lost Art” 1987 (Canada/Quebec) – translation by Howard Scott



Kurt Vonnegut, “2BRO2B” 1962



H.G. Wells, “The Star,” 1897



James White, “Sector General” 1957



Connie Willis, “Schwarzschild Radius” 1987



Gene Wolfe, “All the Hues of Hell” 1987



Alicia Yánez Cossío, “The IWM 1000” 1975 (Chile) – translation by Susana Castillo and Elsie Adams

Valentina Zhuravlyova, “The Astronaut” 1960 (Russia) – new translation by James Womack



Yefim Zozulya, “The Doom of Principal City” 1918 (Russian) – first translation by Vlad Zhenevsky




From the list alone, this looks like it’ll be an essential book for any serious science fiction reader. Just make sure you lift it with your knees, not your back.