44
votes
Accepted
Golden age SF short story where spacecraft pilots are reanimated dead people?
This must be Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith. From the wikipedia summary:
Conscious humans cannot travel through space because of an effect
called the "Great Pain of Space", which ...
- 39.1k
30
votes
Accepted
Alien diplomat unable to lie settles bet about the most wonderful planet in the galaxy
Gordon R. Dickson: Lulungomeena (1954 - novelette)
Tensions at a deepspace relay station erupt over a veteran's claim that his homeworld, Lulungomeena, is the most beautiful in the galaxy. To resolve ...
- 266
29
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" ...
- 7,886
29
votes
Accepted
Scientist in accident which reverses his molecular handedness
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technical Error"
Great summary of the story in the question. Also a full summary at Wikipedia here.
The outcome was...it ended poorly
- 42.9k
29
votes
Accepted
Planet of cannibals
This sounds very much like Disqualified, a short story by Charles Fontenay, first published in If in 1954.
The story concerns two inspectors visiting a colonised world, who have to decide whether to ...
- 39.1k
26
votes
Accepted
24
votes
Accepted
Isaac Newton is visited by a time traveller who tries to give him a calculator
This one is "Newton's Gift" by Paul Nahin from Omni, in January 1979
The story is available here Link to scan of Omni
This link has a description Description of the story
Time traveller ...
- 7,886
23
votes
Accepted
90s vampire short story set in post-communist Romania having a subplot about the effects of AIDS on vampires
As the OP specified a short story, I will suggest another work by Dan Simmons, a novelette entitled All Dracula's Children. It was published in a vampire anthology in 1991 called The Ultimate Dracula.
...
- 39.1k
22
votes
Accepted
Sci-fi short story with shocking reversal of expectation
I was originally going to suggest "Sentry" (1954) by Fredric Brown, but looking at the ISFDb page it doesn't look nearly as likely as the other one Fuzzy Boots suggested, "The Hunters&...
- 79.5k
20
votes
Accepted
Destructive teleportation story where the inventor is afraid to use it
This sounds very much like "The Fare" by Sherri Roth. It was indeed published in Asimov's, but in November 1979 so little earlier than you thought.
You summarised the plot very completely. ...
- 39.1k
19
votes
Accepted
Looking for a collection of stories about an isolationist community
Mike Resnick's Kirinyaga series
They were about a group of people of a particular, but I think unidentified, ethnicity who lived in an isolated community--isolated both by physical location and by ...
- 7,886
19
votes
Short story about time travel and refugees from the future
I am pretty sure Radiant Doors by Michael Swanwick is the story you're looking for. It was published in the September 1998 edition of Asimov's Science Fiction. The story, and a few more of Michael ...
- 13.4k
18
votes
90s vampire short story set in post-communist Romania having a subplot about the effects of AIDS on vampires
I know you said this is a short story, but the scene in an orphanage with a foreign delegation investigating the spread of AIDS and the doctor freaking out about the lack of an autoclave is straight ...
- 79.5k
18
votes
Accepted
Story about sailing ship/printing press on a metal-poor world
This is Vernor Vinge's The Barbarian Princess (or another short story in the series) or possibly the novel form of that story "Tatja Grimm's World"
The ship serves as a mobile printing press,...
- 7,886
17
votes
Trying to remember a story about vikings attacking a convent
I think this is the 1982 story Souls by Joanna Russ.
The Abbess is the head of a convent and works to get rid of Norse invaders by seemingly magical means.
Near the end the Abbess is taken away by ...
- 42.9k
17
votes
Short story where people traveling FTL see their parallel universe selves (not Cascade Point)
With respect to Sieur Zahn, I believe his recollection of his story is incorrect. Unless the story is "The Evidence of Things Not Seen" instead (which I consider less likely), it's almost ...
- 79.5k
16
votes
Accepted
Beehive in body short story
I Am Not I by G. V. Anderson, published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July-August 2017. You can read the story courtesy of PodCastle: Part 1 and Part 2
A review from Goodreads ...
- 13.4k
16
votes
Accepted
Starship crewman from separate space community falls for outsider
Potentially Ghetto by Poul Anderson, originally published in 1954 but anthologised a few times, including in the 1980s.
The hereditary crew are Kithmen, and live in their own community (Kithtown) on ...
- 13.4k
15
votes
SF short story, maybe from 50s or earlier, man visits place (planet?) where vendors at a market buy minute things, like fingernail clippings
The date doesn't match your recollection, but otherwise your description sounds like "The Skinny People of Leptophlebo Street", a 1975 short story by R. A. Lafferty, which was also the (...
- 143k
12
votes
Accepted
Short story about intelligence being only an evolutionary stage to ensure interstellar propagation
The Locusts by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
A colony expedition to Tau Ceti ends up de-volving into apelike creatures.
There are no men on Tau Ceti IV
...
There are things in the forest. They prefer ...
- 42.9k
12
votes
Twin star, perception disturbances on space station, punning text message
This is the Fredric Brown story "Placet is a Crazy Place" (1946). ISFDb offers this synopsis:
A man attempts to manage a research station on a planet in a distant system, where the weird ...
- 79.5k
12
votes
Story about sailing ship/printing press on a metal-poor world
A ship-based printing press, plying trade as mobile printers, is the background for Vernor Vinge's Tatja Grimm series. I need to dig it out to provide quotes, but a review on Goodreads yields:
the ...
- 79.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Sci-fi short, a miniature town/people used for testing advertisements?
"The Tunnel Under the World" (1955) by Frederik Pohl?
Wikipedia reports the ending:
In actuality, the chemical plant had exploded, and all the inhabitants of Tylerton were killed by the ...
- 17.4k
10
votes
Accepted
Pre-80s short story: man finds tape player inside his chest and cuts the tape
This is The Electric Ant (1969) by Philip K. Dick.
"He wants to kill himself and realizes that he can do this by accessing his chest panel and cutting off his reality tape that controls his ...
- 4,408
10
votes
Sci-fi short story with shocking reversal of expectation
There are a number of stories with similar plots. An episode of The Twilight Zone, for example.
However, I think the story you read was probably Youth, by Isaac Asimov.
The humans aren't attacking, ...
- 12.5k
9
votes
Trying to remember a story about vikings attacking a convent
Maybe The Wind Eye by Robert Westall.
Plot: a family from the present day (1970s) are on holiday around Lindisfarne. The youngest child has a seriously injured hand, which was burned a few years back ...
- 12.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Time traveller going backwards and mad in museum
Ian Watson's The Very Slow Time Machine, I think.
At first hairy, dirty and wildly incoherent, the occupant becomes calmer, cleaner and communicative over time. Holding up messages to his window he ...
- 7,886
8
votes
Accepted
Short story where protagonist tries to select wife based on predictions of automated system
This sounds like Robert Sheckley's 'Sneak Preview' found in the collection 'The Robot who Looked like Me" (1982)...
"Peter Honorious looked through his mail one bright September morning and ...
- 671
8
votes
Accepted
Short story: maniac takes over space ship, kills crew
I'm pretty sure this is "The Intruders" (1964) by Robert Rohrer, published in Amazing Stories, October 1964. The only missing point is that it wasn't ever anthologized, it was only ever ...
- 79.5k
8
votes
Story set on a world where the law requires everyone to carry a gun
This has some strong similarities to The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith (1978, and Smith wasn't yet a well known author -- this was AFAIK his first published novel).
Ed "Win" Bear (a ...
- 20.1k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible