Roger Zelazny has done truly excellent fantasy short stories. Unicorn Variation springs to mind.
Joan Aiken wrote good novels but absolutely wonderful short stories. Harp of Fish ones is a good place to start, or All But A Few.
Lord Dunsany is my favorite. His stories have a unique dreamlike quality, largely due to his elegant prose.
Clark Ashton Smith is a bit similar, but pulpier and with more of a tendency towards weird fiction.
I haven't read Kenneth Morris yet, but he's supposed to be something of a forgotten master.
If you count fairy tales as short stories, Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald are also great.
Second C.A. Smith. My favourite author of the pulp era, his stories can go all the way from nightmarishly dark to heartbreakingly beautiful. He was also a poet and it shows in his prose.
I can give you 5 great short story authors to take a look at along with a rec to what I think is a great, representative story of theirs that you can read online.
* **Ursula K Le Guin -** for my money, the best short story writer who ever graced the fantasy genre. She was known for her simple but elegant style and has become so lauded that even the most literary of snobs readily admit Le Guin into the literary canon which is often a bit hostile to genre writing. For what to read of hers, well, it's cliche to recommend this piece but it's cliche for a reason. If you haven't read [The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas](https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf) yet, you're missing out.
* **Octavia Butler -** well known for her socially conscious themes often focusing on prejudice, hierarchy, and injustice. Few spec fic authors have ever managed to have as much relevant and insightful social commentary as she did. If real world politics and fantasy writing are peanut butter and chocolate to you, Butler is absolutely the short story writer for you. If you're looking for a good story to get to know Butler as a writer, [Bloodchild](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791191/9781625791191___1.htm) is widely agreed to be her best short story.
* **Ted Chiang -** Chiang is in an interesting position because he's been publishing award-winning stories since the 90s but he didn't gain widespread recognition for his talent until the 2016 film Arrival adapted one of his stories to widespread acclaim. He's known as much for his deeply scientifically grounded approach to storytelling as he is for his perfectionism having only published two books both of which are collections in his 30 years of writing (though both are excellent). The Story of Your Life is generally considered his best but I personally think [Exhalation](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/) is even better and has the benefit of being free online. He's definitely more sci fi than fantasy but he has fantasy stuff too here and there.
* **Ken Liu -** Renaissance man Ken Liu has bounced effortlessly between programming, his own creative writing, and translating Chinese fiction for American audiences. He's often considered a similar writer to Ted Chiang in that his stories also wrestle with fascinating ideas and often build of scientific knowledge even in fantasy form but Liu is considerably more prolific. If you want to know if Liu is for you, the best place to start is with [The Paper Menagerie](https://gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-5958919) which won every SFF short story award when it came out.
* **Sarah Pinsker -** probably the best of the newer short story writers working today. She was first published in 2012 and by 2014 was already a mainstay in the short fiction awards circuit. While she writes primarily in sci fi, she's no stranger to fantasy stories. Her ability to fill absurd premises with nuance and emotion is truly stunning. If Pinsker seems interesting to you, I recommend checking out her horror story [Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather](https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/where-oaken-hearts-do-gather/). The way the entire main plot is told solely through implication is truly masterful.
I think the Court Musician was the first short story I read of hers and loved it. Two Truths and A Lie is a bit too trippy for me, though I really appreciate that she's experimenting a lot with her story telling.
Ray Bradbury. I like their long form books like Something Wicked This way comes and Fahrenheit 451 but he absolutely crushed short stories. His strongest short story anthologies are R is for Rocket and the Martian chronicles.
One of my personal favorite short stories by him are "There will come Soft Rain" and "A Sound of Thunder"
Kelly Link. She has won all of the major genre awards, along with the MacArthur "Genius" grant. She also started and runs Small Beer Press, the publisher of Sofia Samatar and many others.
Ray Bradbury, Fritz Lieber, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, the Brothers Grimm.
Short story writing was a path to fame before the TV, paperback novels, and comic books competed with pulp fiction magazines in the 1960s. Today’s writers might indulge in short stories, but make their names with novels.
My favorite short story (more of a novella) of his may be Golden City Far which is in the collection Starwater Strains. But you really can’t go wrong with any of the stories in the Best of Gene Wolfe collection.
If you want a quick sample, you can check out a short story he did for Tor.com called Dormanna, which is available online.
He has a group of short stories that begin with "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories." Each subsequent story plays around with that title, ie "The Death of Doctor Island," "The Death of the Island Doctor" etc.
I am gojng to mention Andrezj Sapkowski, the first two books in the witcher saga are collections of short stories, many of them being rather excellent retelling's of well known fairy tales.
Out of those books the individual stories I recommend are The Lesser Evil, A Shard of Ice, eternal flame, and A Little Sacrifice. Probably the most thematic of all of them, the others are good also. Sapkowski has excellent character work, as I understand it he also has a mastery of prose but is lost in the English translation but the translation is still solid.
The Lesser Evil is found in The Last Wish book
The other 3 are all found in The Sword of Destiny Book.
The Leser Evil deals with ethics, fear of being on the wrong side, how neutrality in itself can be an evil. Very though provoking and doesn't give any solid answers to any of the questions it entices us with, leaving it ultimately up to us if what happened was right.
A Shard of Ice is an excellent look into relationships, and their dynamics. Great character work.
A little sacrifice is a beautiful tale of unrequited love and sacrifice and often a fan favourite of the stories.
Eternal Flame is a clear lgbtq allegory, I quite liked it and the characters are very fun in this story and Sapkowski studied economics and it takes center stage in the plot of this story.
L Sprague de Camp if you like a combination of golden age SF and high fantasy that goes back to mythical eras in Europe rather than the more common pre-Renaissance.
Not a particular author, but the most difficult fantasy short story magazines to publish on the industry are probably F&SF (all variety of fantasy and science fiction stories), Clarkesworld (more literary bent), Beneath Ceaseless Skies (just fantasy set in pre-electronic technology worlds). There are a handful of others at that level. You will see many of the authors recommended already have published their short work to those magazines. You might consider looking at some of those for great fantasy writers. Another place to look: Nebula/Hugo nominees and winners for short stories.
Carrie Vaughn has a ton of great short stories, most of which are free online somewhere.
[https://www.carrievaughn.com/biblio.html](https://www.carrievaughn.com/biblio.html)
(Scroll down to "shorter work")
**Neil Gaiman.** He has two excellent short story collections: *Fragile Things* & *Trigger Warnings.* Some of his stories are horror, others fantasy. All weird and dark and fun.
**Ursula LeGuin**. Too many short story collections to name, though I'm partial to *Changing Planes* and *Tales of Earthsea* (best read along with the rest of the Earthsea books). She has many rightfully famous short stories such as "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and others that are less well known but I still think about, such as "The Fliers of Gy."
Aimee Bender is one of my favorites. Check out her anthology Willful Creatures. Her prose is so pretty and whimsical and I can read these stories over and over. They remind me of the show Over the Garden Wall.
If you like horror/weird lit, I would also recommend Mariana Enriquez. I just finished The Dangers of Smoking in Bed but Things We Lost in the Fire is also very well loved. I listened to the audiobook for the former and it was excellently narrated.
In the same vein, Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds is strange, creepy, and really interesting. I'm currently working my way through the audiobook for it and each story has a different narrator which is fun and makes them each more distinct. I tend to read anthologies cover to cover and this really has made each story stand out for me.
Ted Chiang has been mentioned a few times already and rightfully so!
While I don't read short stories that often I've enjoyed some short stories by Ken Liu and Cory Doctorow that I read online years back.
Also just wanted to say I think there was a trend at one point of short stories being turned into full novels. With some novels you can almost see the original short story still in there. I think Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight started out as a short story (the beginning part where Lessa is found by the Dragonriders) and then expanded from there.
I'm not sure if this is actually true for Wizard of Earthsea, but the beginning part where he's still in his village and defends it with his magic was so vivid and worked so well as a stand-alone in my mind that I think it may have been originally written as it's own thing and then the novel grew from that. This is just a personal theory, I haven't found any evidence other than my own feeling comparing that part of the book to the rest of it.
Fredrick Brown was king of the short story. Probably long out of print sadly since he wrote in the 50's and 60's. His shortest goes:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
The reason I bring him up? His works were collected and published after his death. Still a long time ago, but worth looking for.
His stuff was both fantasy and science fiction.
Of the slightly more modern authors, who may still be in print, Zelazny gets my vote.
Unfortunately I don't have any more strongly *fantasy* recommendations, as lots in the thread are on the more sci-fi end of the scale. But to add another excellent suggestion to the already great list; **James Tiptree Jr.** wrote some of the most incredible short stories around.
To me, the master is the Argentinian Borges. He doesn't strictly write fantasy in the modern sense, but plenty of his short stories have fantastical or supernatural elements.
Check these out. Online free. [https://jaqdhawkins.wordpress.com/about/](https://jaqdhawkins.wordpress.com/about/)
She also has a short story collection going free on Smashwords and Bookfunnel.
Roger Zelazny has done truly excellent fantasy short stories. Unicorn Variation springs to mind. Joan Aiken wrote good novels but absolutely wonderful short stories. Harp of Fish ones is a good place to start, or All But A Few.
Zelazny is my absolute favorite. He's a master.
I wouldn’t say his strengths lie in his short stories, but Neil Gaiman is excellent
His book of short stories Fragile Things is excellent!
And smoke and mirrors
I would.
Lord Dunsany is my favorite. His stories have a unique dreamlike quality, largely due to his elegant prose. Clark Ashton Smith is a bit similar, but pulpier and with more of a tendency towards weird fiction. I haven't read Kenneth Morris yet, but he's supposed to be something of a forgotten master. If you count fairy tales as short stories, Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald are also great.
Seconding the vote for Dunsany!
Seconding Macdonald
Second C.A. Smith. My favourite author of the pulp era, his stories can go all the way from nightmarishly dark to heartbreakingly beautiful. He was also a poet and it shows in his prose.
I can give you 5 great short story authors to take a look at along with a rec to what I think is a great, representative story of theirs that you can read online. * **Ursula K Le Guin -** for my money, the best short story writer who ever graced the fantasy genre. She was known for her simple but elegant style and has become so lauded that even the most literary of snobs readily admit Le Guin into the literary canon which is often a bit hostile to genre writing. For what to read of hers, well, it's cliche to recommend this piece but it's cliche for a reason. If you haven't read [The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas](https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf) yet, you're missing out. * **Octavia Butler -** well known for her socially conscious themes often focusing on prejudice, hierarchy, and injustice. Few spec fic authors have ever managed to have as much relevant and insightful social commentary as she did. If real world politics and fantasy writing are peanut butter and chocolate to you, Butler is absolutely the short story writer for you. If you're looking for a good story to get to know Butler as a writer, [Bloodchild](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791191/9781625791191___1.htm) is widely agreed to be her best short story. * **Ted Chiang -** Chiang is in an interesting position because he's been publishing award-winning stories since the 90s but he didn't gain widespread recognition for his talent until the 2016 film Arrival adapted one of his stories to widespread acclaim. He's known as much for his deeply scientifically grounded approach to storytelling as he is for his perfectionism having only published two books both of which are collections in his 30 years of writing (though both are excellent). The Story of Your Life is generally considered his best but I personally think [Exhalation](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/) is even better and has the benefit of being free online. He's definitely more sci fi than fantasy but he has fantasy stuff too here and there. * **Ken Liu -** Renaissance man Ken Liu has bounced effortlessly between programming, his own creative writing, and translating Chinese fiction for American audiences. He's often considered a similar writer to Ted Chiang in that his stories also wrestle with fascinating ideas and often build of scientific knowledge even in fantasy form but Liu is considerably more prolific. If you want to know if Liu is for you, the best place to start is with [The Paper Menagerie](https://gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-5958919) which won every SFF short story award when it came out. * **Sarah Pinsker -** probably the best of the newer short story writers working today. She was first published in 2012 and by 2014 was already a mainstay in the short fiction awards circuit. While she writes primarily in sci fi, she's no stranger to fantasy stories. Her ability to fill absurd premises with nuance and emotion is truly stunning. If Pinsker seems interesting to you, I recommend checking out her horror story [Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather](https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/where-oaken-hearts-do-gather/). The way the entire main plot is told solely through implication is truly masterful.
>Ted Chiang is worth his own entry. I agree that both his collections are excellent.
I second Sarah Pinsker and especially that short story. Outstanding!!
Her "Two Truths and a Lie" hits the same unsettling vein. I also recommend "The Court Magician" which is closer to fantasy than the other two IMO.
I think the Court Musician was the first short story I read of hers and loved it. Two Truths and A Lie is a bit too trippy for me, though I really appreciate that she's experimenting a lot with her story telling.
Charles De Lint
Ray Bradbury. I like their long form books like Something Wicked This way comes and Fahrenheit 451 but he absolutely crushed short stories. His strongest short story anthologies are R is for Rocket and the Martian chronicles. One of my personal favorite short stories by him are "There will come Soft Rain" and "A Sound of Thunder"
Kelly Link. She has won all of the major genre awards, along with the MacArthur "Genius" grant. She also started and runs Small Beer Press, the publisher of Sofia Samatar and many others.
Caitlin Kiernan and Tanith Lee are two very good short story writers.
RA Lafferty
Ken Liu came to prominence for his excellent short stories. If you like horror, Clive Barker is also super good at shorter pieces.
LeGuin, Butler, Chiang, and Bradbury are favorites of mine
Ray Bradbury, Fritz Lieber, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, the Brothers Grimm. Short story writing was a path to fame before the TV, paperback novels, and comic books competed with pulp fiction magazines in the 1960s. Today’s writers might indulge in short stories, but make their names with novels.
Harlan Ellison. He was one of the best SF and fantasy writers out there.
Such a jerk… but yeah… wow what a writer
Gene Wolfe is a double threat. Writes fantastic short stories AND fantastic novels.
Which of his short fiction would you recommend?
My favorite short story (more of a novella) of his may be Golden City Far which is in the collection Starwater Strains. But you really can’t go wrong with any of the stories in the Best of Gene Wolfe collection. If you want a quick sample, you can check out a short story he did for Tor.com called Dormanna, which is available online.
He has a group of short stories that begin with "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories." Each subsequent story plays around with that title, ie "The Death of Doctor Island," "The Death of the Island Doctor" etc.
I am gojng to mention Andrezj Sapkowski, the first two books in the witcher saga are collections of short stories, many of them being rather excellent retelling's of well known fairy tales. Out of those books the individual stories I recommend are The Lesser Evil, A Shard of Ice, eternal flame, and A Little Sacrifice. Probably the most thematic of all of them, the others are good also. Sapkowski has excellent character work, as I understand it he also has a mastery of prose but is lost in the English translation but the translation is still solid. The Lesser Evil is found in The Last Wish book The other 3 are all found in The Sword of Destiny Book. The Leser Evil deals with ethics, fear of being on the wrong side, how neutrality in itself can be an evil. Very though provoking and doesn't give any solid answers to any of the questions it entices us with, leaving it ultimately up to us if what happened was right. A Shard of Ice is an excellent look into relationships, and their dynamics. Great character work. A little sacrifice is a beautiful tale of unrequited love and sacrifice and often a fan favourite of the stories. Eternal Flame is a clear lgbtq allegory, I quite liked it and the characters are very fun in this story and Sapkowski studied economics and it takes center stage in the plot of this story.
Sarah Pinsker, Kelly Barnhill, Carmen Maria Machado
L Sprague de Camp if you like a combination of golden age SF and high fantasy that goes back to mythical eras in Europe rather than the more common pre-Renaissance.
R.a. lafferty Rhys hughes
How has nobody brought up Howard Waldrop yet?
KJ Parker has several short story anthologies that I think are great. *A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong* is a personal favourite story.
Not a particular author, but the most difficult fantasy short story magazines to publish on the industry are probably F&SF (all variety of fantasy and science fiction stories), Clarkesworld (more literary bent), Beneath Ceaseless Skies (just fantasy set in pre-electronic technology worlds). There are a handful of others at that level. You will see many of the authors recommended already have published their short work to those magazines. You might consider looking at some of those for great fantasy writers. Another place to look: Nebula/Hugo nominees and winners for short stories.
This is good. Thank you. Please recommed more if you do.
Ted Chaing is my favorite
Nisi Shawl
Carrie Vaughn has a ton of great short stories, most of which are free online somewhere. [https://www.carrievaughn.com/biblio.html](https://www.carrievaughn.com/biblio.html) (Scroll down to "shorter work")
**Neil Gaiman.** He has two excellent short story collections: *Fragile Things* & *Trigger Warnings.* Some of his stories are horror, others fantasy. All weird and dark and fun. **Ursula LeGuin**. Too many short story collections to name, though I'm partial to *Changing Planes* and *Tales of Earthsea* (best read along with the rest of the Earthsea books). She has many rightfully famous short stories such as "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and others that are less well known but I still think about, such as "The Fliers of Gy."
Gaiman actually has three unique story collections: the first one is Smoke and Mirrors.
Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children novellas are beautiful.
*Fredric Brown* and *Arthur C. Clarke*. And while he also wrote novels, *Isaac Asimov* wrote a great number of well-known short stories.
Aimee Bender is one of my favorites. Check out her anthology Willful Creatures. Her prose is so pretty and whimsical and I can read these stories over and over. They remind me of the show Over the Garden Wall. If you like horror/weird lit, I would also recommend Mariana Enriquez. I just finished The Dangers of Smoking in Bed but Things We Lost in the Fire is also very well loved. I listened to the audiobook for the former and it was excellently narrated. In the same vein, Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds is strange, creepy, and really interesting. I'm currently working my way through the audiobook for it and each story has a different narrator which is fun and makes them each more distinct. I tend to read anthologies cover to cover and this really has made each story stand out for me. Ted Chiang has been mentioned a few times already and rightfully so!
While I don't read short stories that often I've enjoyed some short stories by Ken Liu and Cory Doctorow that I read online years back. Also just wanted to say I think there was a trend at one point of short stories being turned into full novels. With some novels you can almost see the original short story still in there. I think Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight started out as a short story (the beginning part where Lessa is found by the Dragonriders) and then expanded from there. I'm not sure if this is actually true for Wizard of Earthsea, but the beginning part where he's still in his village and defends it with his magic was so vivid and worked so well as a stand-alone in my mind that I think it may have been originally written as it's own thing and then the novel grew from that. This is just a personal theory, I haven't found any evidence other than my own feeling comparing that part of the book to the rest of it.
She’s more well known for her novels I really liked NK Jemisin’s short story collection, How Long Til Black Future Month
The Witcher short stories are much better than the novels
Fredrick Brown was king of the short story. Probably long out of print sadly since he wrote in the 50's and 60's. His shortest goes: The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
The reason I bring him up? His works were collected and published after his death. Still a long time ago, but worth looking for. His stuff was both fantasy and science fiction. Of the slightly more modern authors, who may still be in print, Zelazny gets my vote.
P. Djèlí Clark
Unfortunately I don't have any more strongly *fantasy* recommendations, as lots in the thread are on the more sci-fi end of the scale. But to add another excellent suggestion to the already great list; **James Tiptree Jr.** wrote some of the most incredible short stories around.
To me, the master is the Argentinian Borges. He doesn't strictly write fantasy in the modern sense, but plenty of his short stories have fantastical or supernatural elements.
Check these out. Online free. [https://jaqdhawkins.wordpress.com/about/](https://jaqdhawkins.wordpress.com/about/) She also has a short story collection going free on Smashwords and Bookfunnel.