Funny Science Fiction

UFO

by Alex Shvartsman (Editor), Mike Resnick, Ken Liu

Seventeen of the funniest science fiction stories published in the past decade (2005-2015), featuring alien invasions, global conspiracies, time travel and even animal uprisings. Fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees as well as talented newcomers. Stories were selected by the Unidentified Funny Objects series curator Alex Shvartsman.

Genres: Short Stories, Humor, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Science Fiction Fantasy

209 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 29, 2015

About the author

Alex Shvartsman is a writer, editor, and translator from Brooklyn, NY. He's the author of The Best of All Possible Planets (2026A), Kakistocracy (2023), The Middling Affliction (2022) and Eridani's Crown (2019).

Over 120 of his stories have been published in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and many other venues. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a three-time finalist for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction and, as a translator, a three-time finalist for the BSFA Award. For a brief, glorious moment one of his short stories was in development as a live action TV series.

Alex is the editor of nearly twenty anthologies, including the long-standing Unidentified Funny Objects anthology series of humorous SF/F.

Reviews

[Bandit]

Funny science fiction. Two things I like in one. Yes, please. I wanted this book from the moment I saw it. And actually the library didn’t make me wait for it all that long, which brings up the question of why aren’t people lining up for this book? It’s awesome. I know funny can be subjective, depending on one’s own mental presets, but these stories were as close to objectively universally (literally) funny. At times hilarious. Just read the first story, where Mike Resnick’s alien observers confuse the Earth’s fictional tv with real factual reporting only to conclude that Earthlings are a much more advanced and dangerous species that they might have ever expected. And from there on it’s mostly all (at least 90% plus) like that. Wildly inventive original premises that easily place anywhere from amusement to laugh out loudness. The author line up is great, a lot of well known names, a few new discoveries for me. All of the stories were reprints, though I’ve only read the last one before, the longer and actually somewhat less funny time travel ditty from Tim Pratt, but plenty amusing all the same. The book read very quickly, too quickly, in fact. This seems to be an annual publication and yet our library in its somewhat typical fashion of lightning strike ordering method only has this one. Which is insufficient, because I want more. This book is exactly the sort of light lovely charming funny fun that cuts through all the present day darkness to take your mind off your mind. Plus the sheer quality of storytelling is absolutely uniformly excellent. This was by far the best speculative fiction collection I’ve read in ages. Wildly galactically entertaining. For serious science fiction fans who love some silliness and possibly even vice versa. Either way you will be entertained. Loved the concept (turns out the funny and science fiction go together at least as nicely as pickles and cheese), loved the book. Recommended.

[Charles van Buren]

Unfunny Science Fiction

The main problem with the volume, FUNNY SCIENCE FICTION, is that it isn't funny. The stories range from the mildly amusing, but it has already been done and done better, Observation Post to the unfunny Hark! Listen to the Animals, Kulturkampf and See Dangerous Earth-Possibles.
If you want funny science fiction, here are some recommendations, all available from Amazon:

All the Way to the Gallows by David Drake

Date Night on Union Station and the related volumes by E. M. Foner

Rats, Bats and Vats and related volumes by Dave Freer

[Tina]

Stories from the lighter side of science fiction. Some stories (like one about motocross racing dinosaurs from mars) fall into the "funny weird" area on the comedy scale while a few (like the inter species pornstar sent to pleasure the queen of the turtle people) were more offensively juvenile "humor"

This is a mixed bag of odd tales, some better than others but there wasn't anything here that was laugh out loud funny. Sadly there was no stand-out tale that sent me rushing off to Google to discover an author's other work.

[Unwisely]

I accidentally checked out something that was #3 in a series, so I went looking for #1 & #2. According to my library, this is where #1 was, so I suspect #3 might not be a book. I have stumbled over this before with e-books; it's hard to tell if you've got 1000 pages or 10.

In any case. I often struggle with short story collections, since the quality can vary so widely but this was pretty readable. Rather more stories about cats than I felt were strictly necessary and I'm not sure that I would have described any of them as "funny" per se, but pleasant and readable.

[Tim Shepard]

A Good Collection

Better than most anthologies I've read. This one has a little bit of everything when it comes to science fiction from some great authors. Worth the reading. Some even worth reading twice.

[Marie]

This was fun. Humor is subjective, but a lot of the stories weren't funny so much as light-hearted. I was here for that, though, and had a good time. My favorite (and one of the funniest) was "Nothing, Ventured," about a scientist who tries to find nothing. The wordplay was delightful. I enjoyed almost every story, though. Great summer read.

Favorite stories:

Nothing, Ventured by James Beamon
Observation Post by Mike Resnick
Flying on Hatred of My Neighbor's Dog by Shaenon Garrity
Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel
Pidgin by Lawrence Schoen
Troublesolving by Tim Pratt

[Grivante Grivante]

Some good stories and some okay stories. Overall, I enjoyed it.

[Don]

Meh. Not so funny. Maybe mildly amusing or just light.

[Crystal]

I am normally not a reader of science fiction reader, but I am friends with one of the authors so I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised. As with any collection of short stories, it is best read in small doses.

[Alison]

Entertaining read!

Enjoyable mix of humorous stories. Didn't laugh reading all of them but they all put a smile on my face, hard to ask for more than that.