Madness' Door - It was cliche (fire, blood, chaos, horde, knight, warrior, swords, etc. - rote fantasy jargon), but then again, what fantasy stories these days aren't cliche? The story's biggest weakness is its writing. Two things that come to mind are a) give people names, so they aren't always being referred to as "squire" or "veteran knight," and b) make sure to take the time to clarify what's what. As a reader, I felt the story was leaping ahead without any indication of what the situation was. For example - who's fighting in the beginning? (it jumps from peacefulness to preparations for war/chaos/destruction/blood&gore, etc. without really specifying who the POV characters are, and who they're fighting) I didn't get a clear sense of what each of the characters' motivations were. The last line of dialogue was pretty unexpected and opened up a realm of possibilities- I appreciated that.

*The Mechanic - I was expecting this to be a crusty mechanic + woman pseudo-romance (the writing was good, and it made me kind of cringe, dreading what was about to happen next), but it pulled a Kubrick/2001: A Space Odyssey halfway through and became a body-invading alien sci-fi or something. This isn't bad per se, but the story (and writing) quickly fell into cliches as well, where everything was so neat and by-the-book (the whole description about the "Elusive," for example, could easily be transposed onto countless existing fantasy/sci-fi characters). I would rewrite the second half - bring back a lot of the "texture"/attention to detail that makes the reader squirm when thinking about a crude mechanic lusting after an attractive client. Personally I liked the first half, but if the intention was to focus on the Elusive's story, I'd de-emphasize the first half. The immense attention to detail kind of detracts from the impact of the second half-- the second half feels kind of like an afterthought or a change of heart.

A Live Arm - I was pretty excited when I read the first paragraph, since it looked like the story was gonna be pretty interesting. Starting from the second half, it felt kind of like...I can't think of a way to describe it--maybe a strobe light or something? E.g. mid-game, after game, two days later, three months later, a few days later, one week later, etc. It felt a bit "and then, and then, and then, and then, and then"-- like a chain of events or descriptions, rather than causalities. The story got increasingly vague as it went along. I had no idea what was going on by the last paragraph, but I kind of liked it nonetheless.

*Jack the Green Slider - Overall, this story probably caught my attention the most. The ending was surprising, yet made a lot of sense. The writing was a bit inconsistent. It was good at the beginning and end - some of the more vivid descriptions: "pitched yesterday's grounds in the trash," "as she tilted the jar, it slid from side to side." The middle section, however, (from around the part where the girl hits the boy with her car, until the twist at the end) fell into a typical "girl meets cute boy" kind of routine, and seemed to rely on conventions to pull the reader along, rather than the close attention-to-detail that the story had started with. I would work on getting the middle section up to par with the beginning- try to replace generic, over-used, or vague words like "fun," "cute," "incredible," "amazing," etc. with short vignettes, ideas, etc. I preferred lines like "pitched yesterday's grounds in the trash" because they tell you the girl isn't a prim type of person who cleans out her coffee-maker right after using it - and lets you imagine what she's like in other areas of her life, as well - without having to explicitly say it.