The risk of an anthology of short stories is that usually we couldn't give a similar score for each story contained. That happened to this anthology: three stars score is the sum of the score for each short story in this anthology.
There is a tendency that the author like to play a "language game". It is the part of a rhetoric and it can provoke the reader to feel it as an impressive short story if it is used adequately. Nevertheless, the bad side effect is disturbing: it could reduce the logic of the story, something which could be found also in the use of a hyperbolic anaphora in a poem. Let's see for example the "language game" in the first short story, "Para Bandit dan Hantu Ophaalbrug":
Hantu adalah hantu dan seorang bandit adalah seorang bandit. Hantu adalah seorang bandit, adalah seorang penduduk lokal, adalah seorang pengacau yang seharusnya disingkirkan dengan cara apa pun. Para bandit itu berkeliaran seperti hantu. (p. 11)
Well, it is poetic, but it isn't logical. First, it is said that "hantu adalah hantu dan seorang bandit adalah seorang bandit". It means that "hantu" and "bandit" are different. But then it is said directly that "hantu adalah seorang bandit" so the earlier sentence becomes useless. Then we find that it is said "para bandit itu berkeliaran seperti hantu", a statement which makes the relation between "bandit" and "hantu" becomes more confusing: first, bandit is different from hantu, second, hantu is similar to bandit (which also means that bandit is similar to hantu), but then third, bandit is like hantu (only like, not similar to).
Such effort to be orally poetic in the end deconstruct the logic of the statement since it creates the inconsistency. A good author should know that a metaphor (bandit adalah hantu) needs explanation about which aspect this "adalah" refer to. This explanation will strengthen the statement as long as the author uses metaphor consciously. Using a simile (bandit seperti hantu) after a metaphor and putting it in the place where it is suggested to be the place of explanation is a bad choice since all learned people know that metaphor is more forceful than simile...
Another example of the carelessness is the closing statement for the failed attack of the bandit:
Dan Kapten Roff masih mengira kalau dirinya bukan diserang oleh para bandit, tapi para hantu penunggu Sungai Marengan. (p. 13)
Unfortunately, the narration before it shows that Kapten Roff didn't show a tendency that he assumes the attacker is hantu instead of bandit. From the beginning he sees them as the bandits, but a unique bandits which at least could be called, felt, assumed as "like hantu" but never been "similar to hantu".
Well, the stories in this anthology may have an interesting technique like the third short story, "Nasib Seorang Pelaut" or a unique viewpoint like the last one, "Thomas Matulessy dalam Kenangan Benteng Victoria", but I think a short story needs several simpler basic things more than an exciting story or an amazing experimental technique to be called "good": a "living" character(s), a good choice between which one should be narrated and which one should be kept in the author's mind, and a great attention toward the cause and effect which builds the plot. Based on similar consideration, I think the best story written in this anthology is the fifth one: "1913".
To be honest, I have a question about what the relation between Risda Nur Widia's "Para Bandit dan Hantu Ophaalbrug" and Dea Anugrah's "Penembak Jitu" is since I find a similarity between these two short stories which is too extraordinary to be called as an accidental one. Let's see the opening paragraph of each short story:
"Penembak Jitu" by Dea Anugrah (first published 2016, the quotation here is taken from its third edition published by Mojok in September 2017, p. 41):
Sebidang rawa. Sebuah bukit di sisi timur sebidang rawa. Semak-semak di atas sebuah bukit kecil di sisi timur sebidang rawa. Dua gerumbul rapat semak beri hutan. Sebuah lubang hitam. Setangkai pipa baja sepanjang tiga kilan. Bebatan tali kain penuh gemuk dan lumpur. Sebuah teropong pendek. Sepucuk senapan jarak jauh. Seorang pemuda tugur, tengkurap dan basah dan kotor, dengan telunjuk menempel pada picu.
"Para Bandit dan Hantu Ophaalbrug" by Risda Nur Widia (p. 1):
Sebidang rawa. Sungai pada sebidang rawa. Jembatan gantung pada sungai di sebidang rawa. Semak belukar di ujung jembatan gantung pada sungai di sebidang rawa. Kelewang dan kantuk menunggu di antara semak belukar. Di tepi Sungai Marengan yang masih gulita itu, telah bersiap sekelompok bandit dengan akal bulus untuk menghentikan perahu yang mengangkut garam menuju Batavia.
One possible apology is that maybe Risda Nur Widia is Dea Anugrah's admirer and maybe "Penembak Jitu" is his favorite one among Dea Anugrah's short stories. So, during the time of writing "Para Bandit dan Hantu Ophaalbrug", the impressive opening paragraph of Dea's "Penembak Jitu" recorded in Risda's mind overflows unconsciously and hopplaa it is ended as the opening paragraph of his "Para Bandit dan Hantu Ophaalbrug" with a slight modification.
If that's the answer, I think it will revolutionize Freud's theory about the power of unconsciousness since even after my 5 years of learning Freudian theory I never found any clues that a similarity between two creative works caused by unconscious influence will be found as extraordinary intertextuality form as it is shown above. Or, I never found it because there is no such similarity in what people commonly called as intertextuality. Maybe.