I was honestly pretty underwhelmed with these stories, many of which tried too hard to cram a twist into their short length, few of which were satisfying. I usually enjoy short SF stories; not sure why these missed the mark.

Not bad. Not great. I'm not sure many of these stories will stick with me very long, unfortunately. Thanks to the publisher for the free review copy!!

As suggested by the title, "SFS Stories Issue #2" provides twelve science fiction flash stories. Some of the stories are nicely complete flash fiction. Some end with a delightful twist. Others are a good start for further flash fiction episodes. Each in some way deals with "human advancement," although as hinted in the introduction to the book, one could claim that "advancement is in the eye of the beholder"...

As is fitting for a collection of flash fiction, at 12 stories, this book can be read in well under 20 minutes with the strong advantage that the format still feels fresh on the last page.

I thank the authors, editors, and publisher for kindly providing an electronic review copy of this work.

I discovered last year that I love short stories, and this kind of compilations can give us a big insight in the mind of the author and the way him/her write, this book with 12 stories, or better mini stories, the whole book takes less than half an hour reading, we don’t get much in return of author quality, some stories do give the felling of being an excerpt of a bigger short story… I did like some stories better than others, but almost all left me wishing they were a couple pages bigger…

I received a free ARC of this book through NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily

2.5 stars

A lackluster collection of 12 flash fiction SF stories. A few were decent, several were disappointing.

[What I liked:]

•There are some fun & creative ideas here: flipping the fear of an AI takeover of humanity, robot ballet dancers (cool, but not sure that would work well), etc.

•There are a few stories that had some merit, either due to good writing (Soul Waves) or to meaningful, thought provoking premises (The Implant, Remade).


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The story “Last Goodbye” uses the racial slur g*p in a context where many other acceptable words would’ve worked to describe a bad leg.

•Several of the stories were lacking, imo. Clumsy writing, undeveloped ideas, or just unclear premises.

CW: racial slurs, animal cruelty/experimentation, human medical experimentation, domestic violence

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]