Stories galore (a story a day, week two)

BooksAnother week, another batch of short stories and flash fiction! I read more than one story several days, since they were either flash pieces or simply shorter than average.

I know I should probably comment on the stories or review them in some fashion, but, well, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We’ll just say that not all of the stories were to my taste and leave it at that. But I am going to single out the stories that I thoroughly enjoyed, so at least you’ll know the ones that really hit the mark.

Here are the stories from this week:

  1. Salvage, by Margaret Ronald (from the anthology Ceaseless Steam, edited by Scott H. Andrews)
  2. Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, by Keffy R.M. Kehrli; and For Entertainment Purposes Only, by Jeremiah Tolbert (both from the anthology Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, edited by John Joseph Adams)
  3. Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal; and A Memorial to the Patriots, by Jake Kerr (both from Help Fund My Robot Army!!!)
  4. Practical College Majors in a Robot-Dominated Society, by Nicky Drayden; Kitty Is Alive, Kitty Is Dead,
    by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks; and Investment Strategies in a Post-Apocalyptic World, by Nicky Drayden (all online at Daily Science Fiction)
  5. When the Lady Speaks, by Damien Angelica Walters (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  6. Power Steering, by Wendy N. Wagner (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  7. Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), by Holly Black (online at Lightspeed Magazine)

My clear favorite this week is Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal — and not just because it includes mentions of David Tennant, Nathan Fillion, Tom Hiddleston, and Benedict Cumberbatch. This story was laugh-out-loud funny on a day when I really needed it. (Thank you, Ms. Kowal.) I also thoroughly enjoyed Keffy R.M. Kehrli’s Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, which inspired the anthology of the same name, and I highly recommend Holly Black’s Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), which reminded me a bit of Firefly.

Will there be more stories next week? Of course there will! I still have some anthologies to finish…

(Missed week one’s list, which includes the origins of this experiment? Here you go.)