Anna Hepworth’s Reviews > Impact: Queer Sci Fi's Fifth Annual Flash Fiction Contest > Status Update

'The Sacred Shadow' - the first obviously bisexual character where it is shown, not told.

'You can't rush the kimchi' is the winning story in this anthology. I liked it, and I can entirely understand the judges' reasons, but I didn't get the depth of response to it that they obviously did.

Into the horror section, where I was a bit dubious about how horror and queerness were going to be intermingled, given previous anthologies I've read. Two stories in, and I'm impressed. 'Death's Kiss' is good, and 'Ripples and Regrets' is amazing - uses effectively a children's rhyme to give context to the rest of the story very quickly.

'A Terrible Beauty is Born' - oh, my, that was beautiful and evocative with a first person alien viewpoint.

Back in science fiction again. 'Civil War' is amazingly creepy. 'In Five, Four, There ...' has the first explicitly intersex character that I've noticed, done much better than the two 'bisexual' characters, where the sexuality managed at most to be an adjective for rather wooden characters.

Second place story is 'Clickbait' which is an interesting experiment with form, and does some interesting things, but I spent too much time trying to work out what was going on and really didn't like it that much.

'Waiting for Michael' manages to be good fluff with a paranormal bent.

Partway through the 'paranormal' section, and have come to the third place story, Indestructible. Which is really really powerful, and creepy too.

second science fiction section finished. Some solid works, but nothing that caught my interest particularly.

last of the fantasy part one, Mas ambiti an aswang" is also fabulous