Henry kuttar and his wife moore produced an amazing body of work, both in quantity and quality. These were mostly short stories, written both individually and co-authored under several pseudonyms in the 1940s and 1950s. One major pen name was Lewis Padgett.
As Lewis Padgett, this writing team wrote marvelous science fiction and fantasy stories with great characterization - yes, you read me right, the stories featured that rare animal in science fiction, honestly likable characters. And each story really is a gem.
If asked to cite a favorite science fiction short story by Lewis Padgett, many readers would pick the complex and interesting mimsy where the borogaveson which the 2007 movie The Last Mimsy was based. Others might pick the hilarious proud Robotor the now-not-so-new-and-different, but radical-at-the-time the townkyabout a robot that goes wonky.
Me - I'm a sucker for time travel. The kind of time travel many critics scoff at as cliched. Time travel in which the attempt to break the Second Law of Thermodynamics and betray Nature's linear preference causes a shocking paradox. Time travel used as a vehicle to teach bad people the good lesson that enterprise driven by self-serving greed has a price. It's trite. It's old-fashioned. But gee. That's a good story. And that's what's missing from today's fiction.
So my choice for one of the 10 best science fiction stories of all time is the 1943 piece the lockerIt's fun. It's satisfying. It's not new rocket science. But it's creative, and funny, and it's one of the very best. If a bit disgustingly squishy.