I am delighted to welcome you to the special World SF issue of Apex Magazine. This month, The Apex Book of World SF is officially released, an anthology of fifteen stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror from around the world. This issue is in celebration of that book, and of some of the great writers working in speculative fiction around the world today.
Our first story comes from Israeli writer Nir Yaniv—“Benjamin Schneider’s Little Greys” is a story I fell in love with as soon as I read it in the Hebrew, and I knew straight away I wanted it for this issue. Yaniv takes a hackneyed theme and does something weird and wonderful with it in a story of obsession, love…and little grey aliens. Yaniv’s contribution to The Apex Book of World SF, “Cinderers”, is equally funny and strange, and I do hope you pick up a copy to read it.
Our second contributor was an equally easy choice. French writer Aliette de Bodard is a fast-rising star in the world of science fiction, with stories appearing pretty much everywhere, a Campbell Award nomination, and not less than three novels forthcoming from HarperCollins’ new Angry Robot imprint. Aliette’s “After the Fire” combines science fiction and horror in the best tradition of Apex Magazine, and I do hope you like it as much as I did. Aliette’s contribution to the anthology, meanwhile, the novelette “The Lost Xuyan Bride”, is a wild noir romp in a complex alternate history. Again, I hope you might pick up a copy to read it.
Our third contribution is a sample story from the anthology by Croatian writer Aleksandar Žiljak—“An Evening in the City Coffeehouse, With Lydia on My Mind”, a mixture of Men in Black and Boogie Nights— and who could resist that tagline?
Finally, we have an interview with Malaysian writer Tunku Halim, conducted by Charles Tan. You can read interviews with the rest of the anthology contributors all this month over at SF Signal.
I hope you enjoy this issue!
Lavie Tidhar
Guest Editor
