Thank you (and apologies) to NetGalley for the readers copy in exchange for a (very late) review.

I love an anthology collection. It’s a great sampler to find new voices and potentially a new favourite author. Also a great option is you’re in a big reading slump and have reading commitment issues (I’m talking about myself).
I enjoyed this collection. I didn’t know any of these authors before but I’ll definitely keep an eye out for a couple now.

Definitely feels like golden age sci-fi with the added twist endings that flash fiction often brings. Some of these stories worked and created an engaging world in just pages, most didn't when the twists were cliché or blah, the characters too cardboard, or the story too threadbare even for flash fiction. On the whole such a quick read that it was worth reading for the gems it had.

Lot of nice short stories in this anthology. If you love science-fiction and like to explore cool ideas and concepts, I think this one might be for you!

I picked this up on NetGallery on a bit of a whim, mainly because I’m really into short stories at the moment and I’m picking them up when I can, but also I want to start reading a bit more sci-fi and an anthology of short stories seems a perfect way to start.

I’m really glad I did pick this up as all of these stories appear to come from an online community on Sci-Fi Shorts, so it’s really cool to be able to read and support independent writers like this. Plus, I’ve discovered writers I may have never encountered without this collection and I’m hoping they’ll release more in the future.

Whilst the stories for this were mixed there are definitely a few standouts including: Tea from T.I.M by Stefan Grieve, Conflicted by Don Franke, The Peterson Tube by Jason Welsh and The Empty Farmhouse by Elena Gomel. All of these did something different for me whether that was amuse me or in some cases leave me absolutely horrified by what I read, and I gave all of them my top rating in light of that.

There were a lot of other stories liked in this, and some of them were frustrating as 500 words was just not enough sometimes for how good they were. And whilst there were stories I didn’t enjoy as much, although I will not be naming here, as this was flash fiction I was able to quickly read through those stories and start another one I usually enjoyed more.

Unfortunately, an issue I took with the editing of this was instead of getting sixty unique fiction writers, we got close to somewhere between thirty and forty as some authors submitted more than one story for this collection, and whilst this is a personal gripe, I think it would have been better to hear sixty unique voices, rather than the same voices. Plus, I should note this skews heavily towards men, with very few women taking part in this anthology, maybe this is because the audience of women submitting stories is currently small and needs to be worked on, maybe it’s for another reason entirely – I couldn’t say.

Overall, an interesting publication and a great one to support. There are some fantastic story ideas in here and some brilliant writing for flash-fiction, and hopefully we’ll hear more from some of the authors in this.

I thought this would be a comic book, so I was surprised to get what I did. Let it be clear, this is not a graphic novel collection, but an anthology of SciFi flash fiction. There are a lot of stories in there, I am not usually a reader of flash fiction as I like to set my teeth into richer more complex stories. But when you are short on time, or you want a great punchy premise, this is fantastic. There is a very wide variety of stories and you will find some to love - this is the fun part about anthologies, finding rising talents and seeing the vast difference between author styles and tone and ideas.

The set of stories is pretty good. The stories seemed "fresh" and also didn't have the polish and sophistication that higher-quality anthologies have. But still, a nice collection.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

From exoplanets to time travel, Jovian space elevators to teleportation tubes, and human-like robots to human-disguised aliens, this first anthology from Sci-Fi Shorts offers mind-boggling sci-fi flash fiction, plumbing the depths of the human condition and its imminent future.

This book is a quick fresh book and I really liked all the short stories. This was a huge surprise for me because I am generally not a big fan of short stories. But these ones were great. Mostly all had a great punch line at the end and that made them so much more enjoyable and interesting. I even found myself laughing at the end of some of them.

It is a nice collection of sci fi short stories. As with all anthologies, it's a mixed barrel of good stories and lesser ones - it's fun to browse through.

There were lots of new (to me) authors in this anthology — and lots of creativity, too. Well worth exploring for science fiction readers.

This anthology of flash science fiction provides several amuse-bouche for those craving a quick diversion from present reality. Great for a quick read, this anthology provides stories that can be read in five minutes or less. Perfect for those. with a short attention span or too many interruptions in life for a good sit-down. This smorgasbord of science fiction shorts will give you your fix and help you find new authors to follow. Several of the authors include a link to their site in the 1-3 line bio at the end of each tale.

When it comes to anthologies there will always be a mixed review. Some stories you will love and others will breeze by, quickly forgotten while you search for the next gem within. The measurement of a good anthology is how long it takes before you’re pulled into another world that resonates with you in some way.

Given that this book doesn’t contain short stories but rather “flash fiction” that wait is inevitably brief. It also gives you a sort of world jumping vertigo if you are a reader like myself. I’m just half an hour of reading you will be thrown from countries to planets, from space stations to dimensions. You will see through the eyes of aliens, humans, androids and clones. It’s a double edged blade as a story you didn’t enjoy flies by with a breath but also the ones you love are over in a heart beat.

As a whole I really enjoyed this book. I couldn’t give it more than 3/5 stars as the length of the stories didn’t ever really draw me in. There were also a few which I didn’t overly enjoy but that is always going to happen with anthologies. I do feel this would have benefitted from slightly longer stories, or at least a renaming of the title to avoid confusion. Short stories these are not. But if you’re looking for a relaxing read, glimpsing through windows as you stroll through the minds of various writers, then this is a thoroughly enjoyable book to pick up.

The first problem i had with this book was not inherent to it, but more like a problem with netgalley itself, as it was classified as a graphic novel when it clearly isn't. That means that I requested it wanting something specifically and got another thing. I don't have a problem with anthologies of this type, but it just wasn't what I wanted.

Furthermore, the stories were so short that there wasn't any space for the story to get anywhere. The preface said that each story was around 500 words and that's just not enough, specifically for a genre like scifi. Some stories feel like just 500 words of worldbuilding that just don't have any climax. Some other stories are just pure cliché, and they are so short that they can't twist the cliché and make it interesting. They actually used the "now say it in english" line which I'm sorry but I just hate.

Idk, I didn't really like it. The stories that had writing that I enjoyed were too short for me to like the plot, and then others just had a writing style that I didn't personally enjoy.

"A Sci-Fi Shorts Anthology" edited by J.A. Taylor and Rod Castor is a collection of sixty short-short stories. (Less than 500 words each.) The stories range the full spectrum. Some are superb with witty thought-provoking plot twists in the last sentence. Some are amazingly full and complete miniature science fiction stories. Others are merely interesting and/or thought provoking. And, of course, there are a few that still puzzle me. Overall this is an entertaining collection. This is not be first encounter with short-short stories, but I found it best to read a few at a time to avoid being overwhelmed with the incredible breadth of creativity shown by the authors. I look forward to perusing the editor's website in search of more of these little story gems.

I thank the publishers, editors, and authors for graciously providing a temporary electronic review copy of this work.

This was a great example and exploration of the power of stories and the abrupt delivery of punchlines. I kept glued to the page, hopping from one clever take to another, never knowing what would be next. Of course i would love for these ideas to be presented in full novel form but these teasers and snippets filled my appetite for a clever hook.

Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read this!

I would say this anthology is like popcorn. Each bite is a different story and has different flavors. It’s a fun read if you’re bored, but if you want to ponder the meaning of life, this doesn’t have much substance.

The quality of each story also varies, and I wouldn’t say that a lot of them are very poignant on a sentence level. Most of the prose is bland, and some of the stories don’t have proper punctuation. (Mainly I’m talking about Tea From Tim, which doesn’t have proper dialog punctuation.)

The art in the collection was fun and had an almost nostalgic feel to it, contrasting with the futuristic stories.

The quality of the stories in this sci-fi collection was definitely a bit of a mixed bag. Some managed to pack a punch above their size, others somehow managed to wear out their welcome halfway through in spite of the 500-word maximum. But thanks to the flash fiction format, if I found myself not too big a fan of whatever tale I was currently working my way through, I fortunately only had a minute or so of reading left. Then it would be time for a brand new tale from a completely different writer who had the potential to wow me in just a few short pages.

I will say that the fact that this was categorized with comics and graphic novels, but only had little retro illustrations starting each chapter was an initial disappointment. I dove into this book expecting a collection of short comics that were not only told in unique individual voices but drawn in individual styles. That aside, overall this was a solidly entertaining time. These fun little tales go down as easily as popcorn.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A Sci-Fi Shorts Anthology by J.A. Taylor and Rod Castor is a collection of sci-fi stories with a color illustration at the start of each story. According to the description, this anthology "offers mind-boggling sci-fi flash fiction, plumbing the depths of the human condition and its imminent future." Stories range from futuristic technology to aliens and robots. I was initlally attracted to this book because it was categorized in the comics and graphic novels category, but this is definitely not the right category for it.

Overall, A Sci-Fi Shorts Anthology is exactly what it portends to be. The stories are short and fast-paced with plenty of action. I did take off 2 stars, because there are some formatting issues that the publisher needs to work out. I downloaded the book in 2 formats (a PDF on my computer and also sent to Kindle). The PDF was completely unreadable. The Kindle option allowed me to read the book, but it still had issues, like not having any spaces between words in the author bios. I'm sure the publisher will be able to fix these errors though. If you're intrigued by the description, or if you're a fan of sci-fi, you can check out this book, which is available now!

This charming collection of retro-style sci-fi flash fiction did it right, or mostly right, anyway. The stories were diverse and entertaining. The stuck to the book’s theme of the sort of golden age era of the genre. Each story got a cute technicolor retro miniature artwork. And there were a few really fun reads in here, my favorite likely being about a robot named Bond, because, you know, robots.
The book features a variety of new (to me, maybe to you) authors, whose fondness of the genre shows in every word. I'm not saying every story works equally, but the energy is right and consistent.
All in all, a fun quick read that is sure to delight science fiction fans out there. Recommended.

Stories are extremely short so there is not enough for significance world building. Also, not sure why this is in the graphic novel section when it is not a graphic novel.

I think this book is good for those who love science fiction but don't necesssarily have all the time in the world to read it or don't want to start a series with a lot of worldbuilding. All of these stories are very short. They are usually no longer than a couple of pages. Lots of stories fit into this anthology series so there is bound to be a few stories you'll end up loving.

I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.