Sci-fi flash fiction

In April of 2020, just after the outbreak of the corona pandemic, author J.A. Taylor started the website Sci-Fi Shorts as an escape from the real world. Through flash fiction he wanted to offer a short distraction to people with SF-stories of maximum 500 words. The beginning wasn't easy as there were no (wellknown) writers, no stories and no followers. However, this project gained fame and within the first year over 240 stories were published and over 1.000 followers were attracted on social media. With 2.000 monthly views on average there's now a small but reliable fan base. A similar website was started under the name Fantasy Shorts for fantasy flash fiction. These two websites became a meeting place for fiction writers to grow their writing skills and eventually another website was created overarching both genres: SFS Writers Collective. The latter spawned SFS Publishing which now published an anthology of some of the many stories in print. Authors J.A. Taylor and Rod Castor worked together to edit this publication and select 60 science-fiction stories for this anthology. An overview of the stories and their writers can be found below. *** The idea behind this anthology really appealed to me, as short stories (and flash fiction in particular) are a great way to discover new voices and to relax a few minutes. With 60 stories I assumed to get to know a lot of different authors. But it turned out that the selection wasn't as varied as one might figure. The table of content at the beginning of the anthology only mentions the titles, but leaves out the names of the authors. They're mentioned under every title though. Taking a closer look at them, it's striking how often some authors appear in the list compared to others. Several of them wrote 3 stories. Sadly enough their stories weren't always the strongest ones of this anthology in my opinion (but I know there's no accounting for taste). There were interesting stories, but most of them missed a good twist and just fizzled out leaving the reader with an unsatisfied feeling. Some people might say that this is due to the small word count, but that's no excuse imho. There are plenty of examples of shorter fiction that left a lasting impression even though I read them months or years ago, f.e. the very first book I discovered on NetGalley. The layout was nicely done. Every story was preceded by a retro picture and followed by a very short bio of the author. Overall I'd give this book 2,5*. But even though the stories often lacked a bit of punch, they offered a nice break in between other reads and thus I'm rounding this rating up to 3*. *** Following stories are included in this anthology: 1. John Martin's Universe - Bill Adler 2. Travel to the other side - Rod Castor 3. Wolfmother - J.A. Taylor 4. Transgalactic Consciousness Transfer - Mark Starlin 5. The Hook Up - Kyle O'Reilly 6. The Builders - Elana Gomel 7. The Final Query - J. Charles Ramirez 8. A Galaxy A-Part - LeNai LaRue 9. Tea from T.I.M - Stefan Grieve 10. The Drones of the State - Bill DuBay Jr. 11. The Silent Minority - Adam Temper 12. Acid Rain - Josh Peterson 13. We Have Much To Learn - Zane Jon Dickens 14. The Mermaid Hunter - Harold Finch 15. Tragic Intelligence - Jeffrey Adam Dill 16. Mister Manager - Franco Amati 17. Conflicted - Don Franke 18. That Place Between the Stars - Bradley J Nordell 19. The Warp Speed Contrivance - Justin Skiles 20. Olive’s Cosmic Amputation - J.A. 21. The Dangers of Atmospheric Entry - Robbie Sheerin 22. Initiative 666 - Brad Shannon 23. Taiga Proxima B - Jeffrey Von Hauger 24. Sample Number One - David Hartley 25. The Other - C. Keck 26. Her Memory - Evan Hundhausen 27. Galactic Green - J.A. Taylor 28. Moonlanders - Carl Honor Vellotti 29. The Way Up, the Way Down - Dennis Mombauer 30. A Change of Heart - Rod Castor 31. Shut Down - AJ 32. Mission Accomplished - Patrick Metzger 33. Two Tickets to The Green New World - Rose Bryant 34. Cold Time - Don Franke 35. Wintermute - Bradley J Nordell 36. The Peterson Tube - Jason Welsh 37. The Problem With Immortality - J. Charles Ramirez 38. Time Objects - Elana Gomel 39. The Next Bend in the High Narrow Road - Bill DuBay Jr. 40. Ketchup - Bill Adler 41. Mission 54: The Silent Station - Alexander Bird 42. An Unfortunate Affirmation - Jeffrey Adam Dill 43. Test Results - Stefan Grieve 44. The Farmhouse - Josh Petersen 45. The Empty Planet - Elana Gomel 46. The Final Voyage - Harold Finch 47. Sourdough Space Aliens - Gary Every 48. Solar Survivors - Justin Skiles 49. Space Oddity - Ross Hewitt 50. The Machine - Rosalind Pagan 51. The Garrison World - Dennis Mombauer 52. Lawbreakers - Bill Adler 53. The Madness of the Time Traveler - Stefan Grieve 54. A Time Travel Paradox - Rod Castor 55. EMA-7 - Patrick Allen Kemp 56. Yesterday’s News - J.A. Taylor 57. Goodbye, Moonbeam - Bradley J Nordell 58. Salvation - Alex Kilcannon 59. Alone No More - Patrick Allen Kemp 60. The Chosen Few - Breana Wallace **In 2022 I'm reading (at least) one short story a day.You can discover more about it here. The stories in this book were #49 till #108.*Thanks to NetGalley and SFS Publishing for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.