A Fool's Baneful Gallantry, by Derek Lubangakene

[Apex]

★☆☆☆☆ Needs Improvement

(Fantasy Adventure) Three travelers fleeing across the desert find safety with a caravan, but only as long as they can hide the fact that the Guild has put a price on their heads. (7,690 words; Time: 25m)

This story is clearly a fragment of a longer work; it does not stand on its own.

Face, by Veronica Brush

[Apex]

★★★☆☆

(Robot Horror) Her “father” says he made her in the same factory where he forces her to work, and he only allows her one question per year, but she suspects she might really be human (3,889 words; Time: 12m)

All Votes Will Be Counted (We Promise), by Paul Crenshaw

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Alternate-Reality Dystopia) With no more Congress, the country holds daily votes on just about everything, and voting in mandatory. Clausen doesn’t think anyone looks at the ballots, so he spoils one. (5,414 words; Time: 18m)

Professor Strong and the Brass Boys, by Amal Singh

[Apex]

★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

(Robot SF) A robot music performance aims to teach human beings that robots deserve to be treated as people. (5,167 words; Time: 17m)

O Have You Seen the Devle with his Mikerscope and Scalpul?, by Jonathan L. Howard

[Apex]

★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

(Time-Travel Horror) Someone from our era look back to 1888 London and the Jack-the-Ripper murders. (9,543 words; Time: 31m)

Curse Like a Savior, by Russell Nichols

[Apex]

★★★★☆ Excellent Foreshadowing

(Christian Horror) Junior went out to fix one of the company’s holographic Jesuses that had started cursing. He knew he wasn’t supposed to get in a religious argument with the old lady, but she was very insistent. (3,913 words; Time: 13m)

Where Gods Dance, by Ben Serna-Grey

[Apex]

★★★★☆ Sticks with You

(Horror) A grieving father tries to recreate the son he lost. (1,247 words; Time: 04m)

The Prison-house of Language, by Elana Gomel

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(SF Adventure) Sophia has extraordinary language abilities, although speaking is acutely painful. She’s called in to investigate a group of people in an experiment who’ve started speaking an unknown language. (5,626 words; Time: 18m)

Cold Iron Comfort, by Hayley Stone

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Portal Fantasy) Amadis didn’t like it in the world of faery and returned to Earth, only to find too much time had passed to go home again. Worse, their lover from the fairy world is stalking them. (6,075 words; Time: 20m)

The Crafter at the Web's Heart, by Izzy Wasserstein

[Apex]

★★★★☆ Fantastic World Building

(Fantasy Thriller) Danae’s mom has turned into a plant, and she’s hard up for cash, so she takes a risky delivery job from a guy who’s turning into a book. (6,100 words; Time: 20m)

Bone Song, by Aja McCullough

[Apex]

Not Rated No Speculative Element

(Mainstream Horror) The miller makes beautiful music on a violin made from the bones of a dead woman. This is her tale. (755 words; Time: 02m)

The Small White, by Marian Coman

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Magical Realism) On the eve of the 1989 revolution, a young school boy’s life is changed by mysterious paintings of butterflies that appear all over apartment buildings in his neighborhood. (4,167 words; Time: 13m)

The Great Train Robbery, by Lavie Tidhar

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Good Start

(Portal Fantasy) In a world we can only reach in our dreams, the Stranger rides a train through a dangerous mountain pass while a troupe of bandits plans to attack it. (9,253 words; Time: 30m)

The Pulse of Memory, by Beth Dawkins

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention

(Generation Ship) Calvin can’t wait to eat the fish in the memory tank so he can reclaim the memories of those who went before. (5,100 words; Time: 17m)

Captain Midrise, by Jim Marino

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention

(Superhero) The Golden Crusader must be getting old or something. He’s not so fast anymore, and he never flies higher than the sixth floor, but he keeps doing super deeds. Or trying to. (5,442 words; Time: 18m)

Girls Who Do Not Drown, by A.C. Buchanan

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Fantasy Horror) Everyone knows the glashtyn carry girls to drown in the sea, but Alice is surprised when one approaches her, since no one knows she’s a girl. (2,872 words; Time: 09m)

On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog, by Adam R. Shannon

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Time Travel) A sad tale of how, unable to bear losing your dog, you travel back in time to visit her again and again. (3,767 words; Time: 12m)

Master Brahms, by Storm Humbert

[Apex]

★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

(SF Horror) A man surrounds himself with his own clones and has to deal with the problems when one is murdered. (5,239 words; Time: 17m)

Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn't Even Need a Map, by Gary A. Braunbeck

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Average

(SF Horror) While Glen mourns the recent death of his baby sister, he gets a CD in the mail with a custom program she has someone design before she died. (11,589 words; Time: 38m)

This story brings back painful memories for me, so I may be underrating it.

Toward a New Lexicon of Augury, by Sabrina Vourvoulias

[Apex]

★★★☆☆ Mixed

(Modern Fantasy Dystopia) The government wants to build affordable housing for the homeless, but it wants them to agree to quit using magic first. (6,924 words; Time: 23m)