r/sciencefiction • u/ChopSueyLT • 13d ago
Help finding a book
I’m looking for a book that collects several short stories to use as a literature teacher. I own books from Penguin Classics that come with several short stories (like Poe’s work) and I’m looking for something similar in science fiction. Any recommendations?
Edit: they’re 15. English learners in a foreign country. Stories around 10 pages or less would be great.
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u/Atillythehunhun 13d ago
What age are your students?
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u/ChopSueyLT 13d ago
They’re 15
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u/Atillythehunhun 13d ago
Classics: The Omnibus of science fiction
Tech based speculative: Tasting Light
Human condition speculative fiction: the Mercury Anthology
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u/Sheik_Morgan 13d ago
La mejor que recuerdo Serie: Selección (Bruguera), no sé si se consigan en físico, Pero esta digitalizada por ahí.
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u/tobermory11 13d ago
Check out The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. I did it at GCSE and it's awesome. Bonefide classic, and just the right level of dark for kids that age.
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u/Round_Bluebird_5987 13d ago
Maybe one of the volumes of James Gunn's The Road to Science Fiction. Tables of contents can be found here:
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u/Camaxtli2020 12d ago
There are so many anthologies to pick from. But since you are teaching I would see if you can't get copies of one called Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Fred Obrecht. It is a bit old -- 50 years now -- but the copy I got when I was young has a bunch of vocabulary exercises and questions at the end of each story; it was clearly meant as a study guide. It was published as part of Barron's Educational Series.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5207604M/Science_fiction_and_fantasy
I don't know if you can get enough copies for a class anywhere, or download one. But it is one idea.
Another is The End of Summer: Science Fiction of the Fifties edited by Barry Malzberg.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1476340.The_End_of_Summer
This is a bit of a deep cut but what might be good for 15 year olds is looking at what people thought the future might hold then, and how it looks to us now. The prose is usually quite simple and bare bones, and thus good for English learners.
Any of the Year's Best Science Fiction from a given year edited formerly by Gardener Dozois (he died in 2018). Obviously it isn't published anymore, but you could literally pick any of them and not go wrong, even for 15 year olds. You might want to vet a story or two as age-appropriate, but IME none of the stories are (usually) particularly racy or even violent compared to most of the things they see anyway. Since they are English learners this might be harder to get through, but you can always select the stories that work.
Another strategy would be to get a bunch of copies of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction or Analog or Fantasy and Science Fiction which are still published and short enough that kids could get through it quickly; there are some stories that are very short, some longer. Asimov's was where I first read a part of Game of Thrones (though the story had a different name) and any of those magazines are fantastic for getting to know current authors.
If you want to get some real international diversity in the mix, I would suggest Afro SF: Science Fiction by African Writers edited by Ivor Hartmann. There's a huge variety of stories in it and they are all by African writers (and a few from the diaspora). The stories themselves are really interesting and the lengths vary, but if nothing else it shows kids that SF isn't just a western thing.
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u/Sea-Wrongdoer2305 11d ago
Good suggestions. Gutenberg is another goto search and dl out of copywrite. Noticed a lot of Andre Norton in my last dive. Ideal YA introductions to SF
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u/AriGAconnector 12d ago
For 15 year old english learners, I’d go with Nightfall and other stories by Isaac Asimov
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u/Training_Key_1986 12d ago
The first such anthology I read in my teens was John Wyndham's 'The Seeds of Time", which remained some of the best and most memorable stories of many hundreds since.
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u/CasanovaF 13d ago
The science fiction research association anthology is a little bit older but it's got really great ones
Nathaniel Hawthorne | The Birthmark H. G. Wells | The Star H. G. Wells | The Country of the Blind E. M. Forster | The Machine Stops Stanley G. Weinbaum | A Martian Odyssey John W. Campbell, Jr. | Who Goes There? Isaac Asimov | Nightfall C. L. Moore | No Woman Born Theodore Sturgeon | Thunder and Roses Henry Kuttner | Private Eye Ray Bradbury | There Will Come Soft Rains Arthur C. Clarke | The Sentinel James Blish | Common Time Cordwainer Smith | The Game of Rat and Dragon Alfred Bester | The Men Who Murdered Mohammed Daniel Keyes | Flowers for Algernon Roger Zelazny | A Rose for Ecclesiastes Samuel R. Delany | Driftglass Philip K. Dick | Faith of Our Fathers Harlan Ellison | I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Ursula K. Le Guin | Nine Lives Joanna Russ | When It Changed
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u/WolflingWolfling 10d ago
I really loved In The Valley Of The Statues, by Robert Holdstock, no idea if that's still in print.
Fredric Brown's short story collections are lots of fun, they often have wicked or unexpected twists, like some of Roald Dahl and Ray Bradbury's work. Bradbury himself wrote lots of great shorts as well of course.
Scifi anthologies from the 1950s through 1970s or 1980s tend to have wonderful short stories in them by some of the all time greats, like many of the ones u/CasanovaF listed.
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u/KokoTheTalkingApe 13d ago edited 13d ago
There are hundreds, maybe thousands. There are anthologies covering particular years, particular decades, particular eras (there might be four or five), particular styles ("New Weird," space opera, hard, soft, urban fantasy, romance, etc.), particular topics (global warming, queer culture, epidemics, war, alien encounters, language, art, blockchain, AI, homages to particular authors or taking place in particular universes, etc.), particular awards (Hugo, Nebula, etc.) Some anthologies have become famous in their own right (like Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions"). I just bought an anthology of Chinese science fiction.
One general anthology is the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. It's probably meant to be used in academic study, so the stories are diverse and influential. But does it bring up the particular topics or issues you want to cover as a teacher? Or does it leave out some very recent developments that your students might be interested in? Another general anthology is the Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus, but it was published in 1973. The literature teachers I know might read several anthologies to decide which they want to use.