These three short stories are my favorites. I guess I have a preference for elegiac writing in short fiction.

"Green Mars" - Kim Stanley Robinson. This novella says more than the entire "Mars" trilogy in one tenth the length. After a long losing political battle to prevent the terraforming of Mars a man joins an expedition to climb twenty mile high Martian "Olympus Mons". and reflects upon the impact of human transformation of the environment.

"The Gernsback Continuum" William Gibson. Science fiction reflects the future expectations of the people of the people who write it. Even as Gibson himself was creating a new set of future expectations with "Neuromancer" he wrote this wonderful story about a person haunted by the lingering ghosts of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

"The Terminal Beach" J.G. Ballard - Just barely qualifies as SF. The story of man starving to death on an island used as a nuclear test site. The desolation of the landscape reflects the state of his mind following the death of his wife and child in a car accident. Haunting.