I'm done now and it was a pretty good month of offerings. I got a story from a loved author (Rich Larson). Read a couple newish authors that had great flash fiction but don't have much published. I look forward to watching their writing career (Laura Ansara, Tobias Backman, Templeton Moss).
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Only read these:

- A Thousand Bites. And One by Calie Voorhis (1/1) - 2*
Too much left to infer for me. A feast is set in front of a criminal and one of the items is poisoned. She has some company trying to make it through the meal.

- Under My Thumb by Laura Ansara (1/5) – 4*
Perfect bit of flash fiction. It makes me want to check out other things she has written but it looks like I’ll have to wait. From her dsf.com bio: “A dark ending with a pathway to hope is always preferable to the happy, tidy one. ... She's currently writing a trilogy built in a similar world of "sims" with different characters.“ This story opens on a couple just getting to know each other. They’d shared a “disdain for the state”. Tricky business when admitting that to someone you don’t know very well. That is all I can say. Read it here: https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/laura-ansar....

- My Home, My Galaxy by Tom Jolly (1/8) – 1.5*
I almost quit. The author notes made me hang in there. I wanted to quit because it was like a “science lesson given by a 2nd grade teacher” but I hung in there and it proved that I need to go back to grade school because I don’t get how they wouldn’t have always known there was a tilt. Wouldn’t other things be tilted in the house? How did they accidently discover a new gravitational pull and where was the spaceship exactly? Their basement I suppose.

- Horseplay by Rich Larson (1/12) – 4*
Perfect bit of flash fiction. He always has something unique to offer. This one has the new guy getting his initiation joke but the “I’m rubber, your glue bounces off me and sticks to you” comes to my mind.

- Three Things Cameron Couldn't Tell You by Michael Haynes (1/15) - 3.5*
Sometimes when a time traveling scientist does something to save you from your future, you won't really know it happened.

- The Monsters Which Must Be Slain To Save The Kingdom And Set Things Right by Tobias Backman (1/19) - 4*
Perfect little bit of Flash fiction. Author notes: "I love classic fantasy stories, but it has always bothered me when defeating some alien villain saves the day. As if the story simply ends there. As if killing a monster will really set the world right. It is never that easy."
So our hero does kill some monsters but she is on watch and will keep killing "monsters" if need be.

- Meet Cute by Templeton Moss (1/22) - 4*
Easy to read, perfect little bit of "flash fiction" IMO. What do you tell your family and friends when you meet your bf/gf in an unconventional way? And the author note adds "Or, maybe the question should be, how much are [they] entitled to know?"

- Decoherence is a Lady by Lynne Sargent (1/25) - 2*
Author notes: "This story came about from a thought about how major shifts in our lives and who we are tend to happen around our relationships: important friendships beginning and ending, breakups, etc. This happens alongside the fact that we present ourselves as different to different people at different times and in different contexts. Still, our intimate relationships actually shape who we are because we are around those people so much. In this way, toxic relationships can actually diminish us. As a writer I started out as a poet, so I love extended metaphors and this piece really allowed me to dive into the quantum nature of who we are because we exist in the world with other people who see (or don't see) us."
I think it is an interesting subject to explore but for me it wasn't well absorbed as a flash fiction. For the record, I avoid poetry and metaphors because I struggle with the on-the-spot deciphering, they take. That is not what I read for so ymmv.

- The Unity by Tim Yu (1/26) - 2*
Author notes: "Independence Day is one of my favorite movies. However, whenever the fighter pilot/president gave that speech about how humanity needed to put away their petty differences and become one single unit, I'd think about how that would be facilitated. If we really faced an existential threat and had to unify, what would be the new benchmark normal to unify into? How would we funnel all of human diversity into that normal? ..."
For me the story was too choppy and the time jumps too great. It is a good question, if the aliens are coming and we must ban together, what do we do with the ones that don't or can't join the team?

- Eulogy for Ulysses Jefferson Lee by Bret Parent (1/28) - 2*
Funny. I'm not good with funny. Good ole boy Ule wasn't gonna let nobody tell him he can’t touch something. Merica! (The only SF element was the name of the thing he touched)

- Scars by Anatoly Belilovsky (1/29) - 2.5*
Humans live on a space station or planet complex and their numbers are limited. A man blinded by an engineering accident, sets up literal blind dates in a way that people can have sexy time and not weird out their relationships with the limited number of people on the planet.

Other stories from this month:
- All is Not Lost by Kathryn Smith (1/4)
- Spin by Eileen Maksym (1/6)
- The True History of the Betan Conversion by Will Shadbolt (1/7)
- For the War Effort by Rachel Rodman (1/11)
- All About the Eye by Bo Balder (1/13)
- Second Chances by Diane Chattaway (1/14)
- Black Snow by Cristina Jurado (1/18)
- Sisyphus and Jane Austen by Ivy Grimes (1/20)
- Don't Say the "M" Word by Taria Karillion (1/21)
- Lost Souls by Ray Daley (1/27)