1) Set Down This
This story stuck with me very strongly and cemented my appreciation and envy of Lavie Tidhar. I adore well-constructed language, and the subtlety of the storytelling here makes it one of my favorite Pseudopod episodes ever, right up there with "Everything is Better With Zombies."
2) The Engine of Desire
This is my fondness for vivid imagery and visceral description leaking through. I appreciate a story dense enough to approach poetry every now and then, and this one used very evocative sensory details (much to the chagrin of some, as I recall.)
3) The Moon and the Mesa
Ending the year on a strong note. I know it's a tendency for these sorts of lists to favor the most recent items, but I really enjoyed this story. It tackled difficult subject matter with tact and deftness, and it successfully subverted expectations and left intriguingly placed loose threads to follow. I approve.
Honorable Mentions
Bird in a Wrought Iron Cage - The image of the hand in the cage has been hard to shake, as has the sensation of the hand's sheer nastiness. The most successful of this year's flash stories, for me.
Pseudopod 179: Fading Light - <3 that closing image, even if the story itself wasn't all that memorable.
Pseudopod 181: Spirit of Nationalism - This story had its flaws, certainly, but it gets mad props for subverting the paranormal knowledge trope, where the mystic force brought back by the spirits of the fallen is somehow always "good" and right and correct. This spirit was noble, yes, but also deluded, and that delightfully cynical twist warms my black, bitter heart.
Pseudopod 190: Wearing the Dead - Another story that felt a little too long but that won me over with a striking and hard to forget closing image.
Pseudopod 191: Acceptable Losses - Faustian bargains are definitely a good time. My biggest complaint here was that the amount of death veered from "tragedy" into "statistic" territory.
Pseudopod 205: Gulls - I dissed the Pratt-monster in my other selections, so I had to give him the nod here for a fun story that is just the right length. It sets the ball up, runs back, punts it through the uprights, and then gets out of the way. I appreciate that in my fluffy monster stories.