Welcome to Apex Magazine issue 152.
This month we bring you stories that push the boundaries of bizarre and twist the world we know into something strange and surreal.
We open this issue with a new story from Jordan Kurella. “Unsettled Nature,” a mystery story set on the back of a jackelope, opens when a mangled body is found near the tail of the animal. Arlen is quick to accuse our narrator, Beau, an older man who wants nothing more than to live out the rest of his life in peace. As more bodies are found, Beau knows that he needs to figure who or what is killing people, but that’s hard to do when everyone around you is beginning to believe you’re the suspect. While Kurella leaves a lot of the why/how of this universe unspoken, he does an expert job of introducing a world so vastly different from our own, quickly orienting the reader to this world, and dropping them into a story so fascinating that understanding the how people came to live on the backs of mega-fauna is irrelevant. I adore this story and would love to see more from this universe.
“Piglet Delivers” by Maria Haskins takes the childhood memories of The Hundred Acre Woods and twists them into something dark and sinister. I don’t want to say too much about this story—as Marissa van Uden points out in her interview—this is a story that is best gone into blind. But I can say you will see familiar faces from Winnie the Pooh stories and how they’ve changed may shock you.
P.L. McMillan’s “Ascension” is a non-linear body horror tale that examines our relationships with love, ourselves, and the risks we’re willing to take to hold on to something we fear we’ve lost. When Sam loses her arm in a work accident and, as a result, can no longer compete in rock climbing competitions, she feels her life is over. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get this part of her life back—even if that means losing her girlfriend, Abithe. She decides to climb the Tower, believing that if she can make it to the top and win the prize money, she can both save her relationship and have the funds needed to buy a prosthetic that would qualify for competitions. This is a claustrophobic story. The isolation, the walls of the tower, the absolute desperation Sam feels to get to top—it all comes together in a way that is ultimately heartbreaking.
Rounding out our original short fiction is “The Island of Sea Turtles and Blood” by Angela Liu. When Agnes goes missing while on vacation with her friends, it seems that no one is worried about her except our narrator. Agnes is flighty, she’s wandered off before, and besides, they’re on an island! Where could she have really gone? But our narrator is worried. Agnes has had a rough life, and sometimes she does things that aren’t safe just to get a reaction. But when Agnes returns, our narrator doesn’t feel relieved. Something is off.
Our flash this issue was inspired by the themes Deep Sea, Candlelight, and Folklore.
For Deep Sea, we have "Shrinkage!" by Ashlee Lhamon, a dark science fiction piece about the sacrifices made for exploitative labor and how hope is sometimes more dangerous than anything. "One Last Light to Guide Me Home" by Avery Parks for Candlelight is a science fiction about memory, grief, and the way some things never leave us. Finally, our Folklore theme inspired "Heritage, or This Body of Folklore" by Ayida Shonibar, which is a dark fantasy piece exploring class, identity, and the ways we make ourselves. Make sure to read the essay by first reader Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos in this issue discussing the folklore theme!
Our essays this month are by Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos and Storm Humbert. Bradley Powers interviewed our cover artist Trevor Henderson. Marissa van Uden’s author interviews are with Maria Haskins and P.L. McMillan.
Classic fiction this month is by A.P. Thayer and Kat Sedia. A quick note on Sedia’s piece, “Citizen Komarova Finds Love”: Maurice Broaddus finds all of the classic fiction that I consider for each issue. I read them, and assuming I love them (which I almost always do), I schedule them for future issues. It wasn’t until after I had scheduled Kat’s piece that Jason pointed out that the story was originally published in Apex! The story was in Apex Magazine issue 17 back in 2010. After a lot of discussion, I decided to go ahead a reprint it in this issue. Neither Maurice or I were selecting pieces for Apex in 2010. Actually, I didn’t even start working for Apex until 2012. I think this story is fantastic and even though it was previously published in Apex, it was new to me, which means it may be new for a lot of you as well. I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you to all of you. Our readers make sure that Apex keeps going, and I am forever grateful for that. I love being able to discover amazing stories in our submissions and sharing them with you. I love working with the authors, artists, and fellow editors at Apex. Being the editor-in-chief of Apex is truly a privilege, and I love doing it.
Until next time, happy reading!
Lesley Conner
Editor-in-Chief
Apex Magazine