100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories

Published: August 9th 1980 by Avon (first published March 1978)

Science fiction Grand Master Isaac Asimov assembles a collection of the shortest science fiction stories available to entertain and to illustrate a point. "As a story grows shorter and shorter, all the fancy embroidery that length makes possible must go. In the short story, there can be no subplots; there is no time for philosophy; what description and character delineation there is must be accomplished with concision." He has chosen 100 short shorts "from the science fiction blowgun" of experienced writers, including himself.
Some of my favorites, with their pithy, Asimovian tag lines:
1. Jerome Bixby's "Trace" - Imagine hitting that tiny bit of impurity.
2. Larry Niven's "Safe at Any Speed" - The womb was never like this.
3. Isaac Asimov's "Exile to Hell" - Well, look about you, wise guy.
4. Fred Saberhagen's "Martha" - And that's how television programming works, too.
5. Larry Niven's "Mistake" - Updating the pink elephant.
6. Roger Zelazny's "Collector's Fever" - Golly, isn't any form of depredation safe?
7. Alfred Bester's "The Die-Hard" - Yes, but how do you define man?
8. Anthony Boucher's "Star Bride" - Romeos come in all varieties; so do Juliets.
9. Thomas Monteleone's "Present Perfect" - You said it, not I, Tom.
10. Mildred Broxon's "Source Material" - That explains a lot of my own teachers.
The stories are good examples of the short-short form. The reader's enjoyment is somewhat hampered by their age. The tone of a science fiction story is affected not just by when in the future it is set, but by the vision of the future in vogue during the time it was written. Readers will encounter Martians, building-sized computers, and English-speaking, humanoid aliens. And a number of formerly surprising and hard-hitting endings have become less so with the passage of time.
But there are some classics and some obscure gems, too. This collection is recommended for science fiction fans, connoisseurs of the short-short form, and writers learning to write brief, high-impact narratives.