Best of 2024: Presented by Raconteur Press

by Ben Yalow, Sam Robb, JL Curtis

Short stories contain an idea. Ask a question, then begin to answer it. In a short story, you can contain a perfect narrative, it may be short in the time it will take you to read, but not in the time it will linger with you provoking you to thought. These are those stories.

Have you ever wanted to try out the very best stories published by Raconteur Press? Well, after their author peers nominated, Ben Yalow himself chose the top ten stories for this very special collection. Truly the cream of the crop, and a perfect selection to sample the wares of the Press, or to introduce a friend into reading Indie SFF.

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 6, 2025

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really good short stories here from a range of science fiction subgenres. I thought all of them were entertaining and several were exceptional. My only complaint is that Raconteur Press published 24 anthologies in 2024, yet (by my count) the 11 stories in this "Best of" anthologies were taken from only seven of those anthologies. This includes two robot-themed anthologies published that year, so I can see someone who had already purchased both of them be disappointed to only be getting seven new stories in this volume. That said, I love the "Best of" idea in principle. I hope they continue to publish these, but they should limit it both to one story per author (which happened here) and one story per anthology--maybe give the editor a single exception.