Who are the best science fiction short story writers, and why?

It has been in the short stories that sci-fi and fantasy writers often introduce and explore their most compelling milieux and story ideas, so if you check out old and new best-of-the-year and Hall of Fame and Hugo Winners anthology, you can recover very nearly the whole history of the genre told in briefer works. read more

Harlan Ellison has received the most Hugos for Best Short Story at four, and Larry Niven, Mike Resnick, Michael Swanwick, and Connie Willis have each won three times, the only authors to win more than once. read more

Though the story's disturbing premise - that a servile android-robot could turn on its human superiors and commit murder - was probably radical at the time, without Bester's way with words, Fondly Fahrenheit wouldn't have become the classic science fiction short story that it is today, still cited as one of the best sci fi stories ever. read more