Votes:
1. Mike M
2. Tangent
3. Ashes
hm: lightningboalt, flowers
RoyaleDuke - So Far From Here
Establishes mood well. A few more details could really bring us into the car with Allan. We know it's old and beat up, but what are some more unique things about it? What does he have on his dashboard? What's hanging from the rearview mirror? Is there a drip of water from one of the windows because it won't close all the way? That kind of thing. This is a story that really needs us to be in the headspace of its MC. Pull us there as close as you can, give us the little things around him, what he sees, new details he might find in a substance he is intimately familiar with. The boxes of mementos inches us toward something like that, but even "action figures and comic books" can be honed in on. Which action figures? Which comic books? These types of specific details pull the curtain back that much more on character.
dpunk3 - untitled
Do your damnedest not to open with someone waking up. Unless there is a hell of a reason to start us with the beginning of the day, it's better to skip the foreplay and throw us right into the action. Your story does not begin until "A voice stops him cold in his tracks." All your vital information flows out of this point (and maybe there is too much of it, maybe it is better to pick two or three important fears or desires and really whip those up). All the words that come before are superfluous. They are the sounds of a throat clearing before the speech begins. Fine to ease into the writing with such passages, but not necessary for your readers to be engaged.
I am reminded a little of Solaris. Communication with an apparition of desire. Dreamlike. An interesting place to start. But this section does not give us enough to chew. You set up a conflict within your MC, but it is never clear why he is so anxious. We are simply told it is so.
Aaron - Fire in the Blood
I like this in a B-movie way. Is there a B-movie equivalent in fiction? Omar is in his own head a lot. Takes me out of the story, because it slows things down. Let him think less and do more. Show me who he is through his behavior. A few observations here and there are just fine, some kind be great, but one after another like this stifles the pace. Being too in the head of a character is one of the big risks of going first person... It's important to keep that perspective in sight, and introspection can be a great strength of this point of view, but be careful not to weight that introspection too heavily, especially at the expense of action in what is a roaring action story.
Omar functions as an audience surrogate here, which is alright, but it holds him back from really being active. He sort of sits by and narrates what's happening without participating much. Although I do think the switch from his pursuit of the girl to a kind of passive onlooker is subversive enough to be interesting. Still, it feels like the story sort of gets away from him during the church sequence. We're still in his head, but it is no longer his story, and it feels weird, a little disconnected, to be that far removed from what is going on. I think what holds it back is that Omar has no clear goal during this sequence. If he is trying to achieve something, he can become more active, and more relevant to the action at hand.
Maintains a nice humorous bent and is easy to read. I think it succeeds at being a funny, ridiculous action piece.
Lightningbolt - Snake Oil
Mike is right, the first scene doesn't tell us anything we don't get in a more interesting context later on. The bar scene is shady in a Star Wars cantina-esque way. The world is interesting, in that Old West/Outer Space mashup style (e.g. Firefly). It seems well established to me, but I am familiar with some of the sources you're borrowing from, and may be filling in the blanks with other, similar material.
Maybe a nitpick, but are we meant to assume all these various alien creatures have similar sex organs?
Mike M - False Symmetry
Great details. Well-realized personalities.The idea is neat (Flowers and I discussed communication problems between creatures from different worlds during the co-op challenge, and this reminded me of that). The world is built with skill and its nuance compels us to pay attention to detail. Isaac does not do much. He is probably the least interesting part of this story. He seems to exist only to give us an entryway to learn about the behavior and customs of the tripods. He is not much of a character on his own, and we learn very little about him except for his job, and even this seems necessary only so that we can arrive at the ending. That was a little disappointing. The resolution occurs quickly and is entirely out of the hands of the main character, which makes it kind of squeak by as if it's nothing much. So I'm a little divided here. You've presented us the most interesting setting this round, and probably the best world building. But your main character is not too interesting and seems to function only so that the story can happen. Things happen to him, not because of him, and though I recognize the difficulty in making a prisoner a free agent, this causes his struggle to feel flat.
FlowersisBritish - The Mother and the Owl
I had trouble deciding where to rank this one, and could have easily slipped it into my top three. I thought the beginning was a little heavy, and we could have got to the conversation with the owl a bit quicker. The first exchange with the owl was very good, and I was a little confused, a little let down to find that his puckishness did not carry through the years to his conversation with the resurrected son. He was a nice Cheshire cat-like personality, similarly cryptic and ambiguous. I liked the conflict between the mother and the townspeople, reminded me of Frankenstein, although it seemed to lower the stakes pretty quickly. People simply got used to the undead son. That's a unique turn, but it causes the last few sections to feel insignificant compared to what's come before (it's melancholy, but still along the lines of "and they lived happily ever after").
An aside: I like owls in fiction. One of my all-time favorite short stories is "Owl" by Emily Ruskovich. They are alluring and mysterious creatures. A wise choice to make them fringe-dwellers, these creatures that live across the borders of worlds.
Tangent - Salvation Rigidity
I like your lead character. He's interesting and fun. He carries much of the weight here, and I enjoy spending time with him. The revelation of his poster is executed well and receives a proper build up. It is fitting for his character. The pace is maybe overly relaxed, although the story is very brief, and does not really suffer for a lack of conflict.
Cyan - The Temple of Nalit
Kind of reads like a back-of-a-napkin prologue. Doesn't really express a complete thought, but approaches one. Did you have larger plans for this?
Ashes - Firecracker
It's a little simple, but very refreshing. Sometimes short and sweet is enough for me. Often it is.
Nezumi - Ramblings
I don't think it would be fair to deeply critique this. I would like more specific details. I think it is a good starting point for a memoir and could explore the relationship more thoroughly to great effect. It was all connected and I think calling it "ramblings" is underselling it. It expresses a coherent idea. I don't know if the narrator is fully you, but whoever it is, they have room to reflect more critically on why they feel the way they do. This piece feels like it is scratching at something deeper, even as it is hesitates to break the surface.
mu cephei - Rocks
I agree with Mike. It takes a long time to get us where we need to be. There are several good ideas here but they take too long to meld into something compelling. Get us there quicker. Background info can be peppered throughout action. It holds things up to explain who is what and where and why. Just drop us in, trust us to figure out the rest.