59
votes
Accepted
Old story about a man with tattoos that told stories
This sounds like Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". As described by the Wikipedia entry:
The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of eighteen science fiction short stories by American ...
- 31.7k
39
votes
Author and book title that includes "The Slow Ones"
This is Ian Watson's "Slow Birds" (1983). It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and variously anthologized.
Skating races on plains of glass:
By late ...
- 143k
38
votes
Accepted
Young adult short story book with one story where a woman finds a walrus suit and becomes a walrus
Thank you to @TheLethalCarrot, without whom I would not have found this book.
The book in question was Half-Human (2004), which did indeed include part of Dusssie by Nancy Springer.
A girl who hears ...
- 681
37
votes
Accepted
Collection of dystopian short stories: people eat a dog, detective hunts and kills kids, world where everyone is dumb
Having looked a bit further, I think this is Paolo Bacigalupi's 2008 collection Pump Six and Other Stories.
The first story you mention is almost undoubtedly "The People of Sand and Slag" ...
- 143k
35
votes
Accepted
1960s sci-fi anthology with a Viking fighting a U.S. army MP on the cover
This is the 1962 Ace paperback edition of a 1957 hardcover anthology, The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sixth Series, edited by Anthony Boucher. The cover by Ed Valigursky is inspired by Poul ...
- 171k
35
votes
Accepted
Searching for a Sci-fi short story about a parasitic fungus that makes people climb poles and explode
War Dog by Mike Barretta. I read it in The Year's Best Military SF & Space Opera edited by David Afsharirad.
The protagonist is a veteran called William Jackson. The people infected with the ...
- 117k
34
votes
Accepted
Book about an AI that traps people on a spaceship
I think this the Asimov robot story "Escape!". The two people are Donovan and Powell, his recurring characters who are field testers for US Robots.
From Wikipedia:
Powell and Donovan board ...
- 66.5k
33
votes
Earth men land on planet with wolf/dog-like predators, use newly developed ray guns with unlimited range
Apart from the fact that the question specifies a group of men, this sounds very much like "The Gun Without A Bang" a short story by Robert Sheckley that deals with the adventures of just ...
33
votes
AI tricks space pirates into attacking its ship; kills all but one as part of effort to "civilize" space
Guest Law by John C. Wright. I read it in Years Best SF 3.
The quote you remember is:
He spoke in a voice of Jovian calm: “Who else but a machine intelligence has so long a life that it can intend to ...
- 117k
31
votes
Accepted
Short story: member of 'atomic priesthood' reminisces
Short version: I think this story is almost certainly "Aspic's Mystery" a short story by Arsen Darnay. Originally published in Analog in 1976, it was later anthologised in "Space Mail, ...
29
votes
Accepted
Short story involving a man who does battle at the molecular level in his own body
Probably Carcinoma Angels by Norman Spinrad, 1967.
The first story purchased for Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions
anthology. Nominated for awards. A man who has proven he can do
anything finds he ...
- 17k
28
votes
Time travel short story about a man from a multi-racial future who is killed when he goes back to a racist past?
"Dark Interlude" by Mack Reynolds and Fredric Brown
A traveller is sent back to an earlier time (early 20th century America?). He reveals innocently that he's "at least one-fourth" ...
- 60.6k
25
votes
Accepted
Short story collection about a genius inventor who guesses a password and develops an addictive food that turns explosive
After posting this the name "Eisenberg" swam up out of my subconscious, so I Googled "sci-fi author eisenberg" and found the 1971 collection "The Best Laid Schemes" by ...
- 4,213
24
votes
Young adult short story book with one story where a woman finds a walrus suit and becomes a walrus
As this was in a school classroom it seems highly likely it might have only included excerpts from the stories and not the whole thing in detail. Or it could have just mashed together a group of ...
- 144k
23
votes
Accepted
Anthology series with suspended animation and a galaxy-wide empire?
This might be The Worthing Saga (1990) by Orson Scott Card. It consists of one novel and a number of short stories, which might explain why you recall
different time periods and perspectives from ...
- 26.3k
23
votes
Accepted
Scholastic sci-fi anthology book containing a short story about a planet with crystal monsters
The first story you mentioned might be The Music of Minox by Howard Goldsmith. It was published within the More Science Fiction Tales: Crystal Creatures, Bird-Things & Other Weirdies anthology in ...
- 134k
23
votes
Accepted
Short story, part of a collection, involving a clown pun duel
This has got to be a tale from one of the Circus World books (Circus World, City of Baraboo, and Elephant Song) by Barry B. Longyear.
It's most likely Circus World, an anthology that includes the ...
- 17k
22
votes
Accepted
Short Story - Man lives in isolation in a compound, plays tennis against a robot, arranges meeting with a woman
It's "Manners of the Age" by H. B. Fyfe. The story is available online here or here.
It starts
The red tennis robot scooted desperately across the court, its four
wide-set wheels squealing.
...
- 53.7k
22
votes
Astronauts returning from a mission find they are rejuvenating (lost teeth are regrowing)
This might be "Silent Brother" (1956) by Algis Budrys. It was in a Gollancz collection of Budrys' stories called The Furious Future (1964).
The protagonist is not an astronaut himself, or ...
- 143k
22
votes
Accepted
Which sci-fi collection contains the (possibly non-scifi) story of an unhappily married woman who goes back to her Alma Mater?
The story you described is "Chance", a novelette by Connie Willis, first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1986, available at the Internet Archive. The story (tagged &...
- 171k
21
votes
Short Story ID: Academy of gifted children evolve beyond us & "resign from humanity"
"The First Men" aka "The Trap", a novelette by Howard Fast; first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1960, available at the Internet Archive; full ...
- 171k
21
votes
Fantasy anthology about wizards and magic, including a story about a wizard's tower becoming sentient
The Fall and Rise of the House of the Wizard Malkuril by Scott Lynch. I read it in the anthology The Book of Magic edited by Gardner Dozois, and I'd guess this is the anthology you remember since the ...
- 117k
20
votes
Accepted
Set of short stories, including eating mangoes in the bathtub and helium suitcases
This was probably the collection My Friend Mr. Leakey, by J. B. S. Haldane (1937). In the first story, "A Meal with a Magician", the magician Mr. Leakey gives the protagonist a mango that ...
- 4,970
19
votes
Accepted
Anthology of stories beginning with the protagonist checking into the suicide clinic
Five Fates.
This was published in 1970 so it fits with your memory of the date you read it. The book is a collection of five novellas, each of which explores what happens when William Bailey checks ...
- 117k
19
votes
Accepted
Short story where interplanetary explorers find a strange planet that's weirdly suited for human life
This is surely Drop Dead, a short story by Clifford Simak, first published in Galaxy in July 1956.
It indeed deals with a team of scientists surveying a new world, and being surprised by its lack of ...
19
votes
Sci Fi short story collection: One about immortals that live in the mountains and another about a drug to perfect genetics that also swaps sex
I think the first story you describe is Entre les Beaux Morts en Vie (Among the Beautiful Living Dead), a short story by the Australian writer Sean Williams. It deals with a man, Martin Winterford, ...
19
votes
70's Sci-Fi Comic Magazine (anthology) about an alien crash-landing his saucer
This sounds very much like the story Daddy and the Pie, a B&W comic drawn by Alex Toth that first appeared in Eerie #64 in 1975. "Pie" is the name given to a tall blue alien discovered ...
18
votes
Children's sci-fi collection - Alien orthodontist
Piers Anthony's novel Prostho Plus is a fix-up of his series of short stories about a prosthodontist named Dr. Dillingham who is abducted by aliens and forced to travel around the universe fixing the ...
- 171k
17
votes
Accepted
Story where a man evades capture from a spaceship by walking round an asteroid
Could this be the story "Hide and Seek" by Arthur C. Clarke?
Most of the details match; it's told as a story within the short story, a lone astronaut avoids capture by a large cruiser. The ...
- 143k
17
votes
Accepted
Help identifying either an anthology or specific short story contained therein
Nothing seems to be an exact match but I suspect this is the 1973 Roger Elwood anthology Way Out
In a world where most people have become smaller to combat overpopulation/crowding, 2 siblings live in ...
- 53.7k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible