Archive for the ‘Mari Ness’ Category
this blog post is part of Apex Magazine’s Operation Fourth Story. If Apex picks up enough new subscribers this month, they’ll be able to include a fourth original story in future issues, and how awesome would that be! Click here for more info about Operation Fourth Story. Already a subscriber? click here. But don’t just take my word for it, check out these other recent Apex Magazine blog posts:
Books, Bones, and Buffy interviews Cameron Salisbury, Managing Editor
Two Dudes in an Attic reviews Issue 55 (Dec 2013)
Bibliotropic reviews Issue 58 (March 2014)
Lynn’s Book Blog reviews issue 57 (Feb 2014)
Over the Effing Rainbow reviews issue 59 (April 2014)
Beauty in Ruins reviews issue 54 (Nov 2013)
Genre-Bending reviews issue 55 (Dec 2013)
new! Bibliosanctum reviews issue 58 (March 2014)
And for those of you who would like to take my word for it, here are my thoughts on issue 58, the March 2014 issue:
I’m yet another newbie when it comes to short fiction magazines. I’ve subscribed to Asimov’s for maybe two years now, and have picked up the occasional promotional issue of short fiction magazines at conventions and bookstores and such. But these new fangled electronic magazines you say? Read it on my phone or e-reader, you say? say WHAT?
Once I got over the omg this magazine is on my phone thing, I suddenly realized omg this magazine is on my phone, this is wonderful! I don’t need to worry about it not fitting in my purse or getting all mangled in my purse (a part of me is still mourning that poor, poor issue of Asimov’s that I shoved in my purse and it got completely mangled by my keys), or it getting soaked in the mailbox (the fate of too many Asimov’s). okay, so having Apex Magazine on my phone is pretty neat. And hello gorgeous cover art! Julie Dillon is one of my favorite artists! ok, so it’s pretty to look at, as portable as chapstick, and easy to navigate, but what about what’s in it?
Each issue of Apex Magazine includes a short note from the editor, a few short stories, poetry, interviews, and a non-fiction essay about issues that are near and dear to genre fans. The March issue opens with a short essay from Editor Sigrid Ellis (who I recently interviewed), where she talks about crossroads, the fine line between flying and falling, thresholds, and breaking through those thresholds, deciding if we are falling or if we are no, flying. She’s not just randomly talking about decision trees, she’s introducing you to what lies in the pages ahead. Characters in transitions, characters who are standing at the precipice, people at the cross roads of what will define the rest of their life. And you know what? Falling or flying, it’s up to the person in the air to decide which verb applies to them.
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000040_00012]](https://littleredreviewer.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/apex-blog-tour-banner.jpg)
I’m a terrible blog tour host. I didn’t even *read* the entire book before the tour started. But there’s a silver lining here! It means as the month goes by I’ll be posting additional reviews of different stories in the book! My terrible reading habits is a win for you! I might even be a completist about the whole thing. Yes, yes I shall. my goal for 2014 is to be a completist.
Today’s reviews include short stories by Ian Nichols, Cecil Castellucci, Sarah Dalton, A.C. Wise, Alethea Kontis, Katharine Duckett, Cat Rambo, Tim Susman, Mari Ness, Brit Mandelo, and David J. Schwartz. Think that’s a great combination of authors? it is, but it barely covers one third of the awesomesauce that is this volume of fiction from Apex Magazine.
interested in reading these stories for yourself? of course you are! Head over to Dab of Darkness and enter to win a copy!
In the Dark, by Ian Nichols – In the mining town, the men sing on their way home from the mines. Songs about the sunlight, about beautiful women, about farming, songs about nothing at all. You don’t ever sing about the darkness of the mines, and you don’t ever sing alone. These are easy rules to live by, rules that keep everyone alive. Until the gypsy boy came. He flashed his dark eyelashes and caught the eyes of the officially unbetrothed. His nimble fingers graze the strings of his guitar and his voice is a caress on the air. But he sings alone, and he sings of the sad and the tragic and the lonesome and the dark. He hasn’t grown up around the dream-stealing darkness of mines, he has no way of knowing the danger he’s in. Morgan should really warn the boy about the dangers of singing about the dark, so near to the Dark. So he takes the gypsy boy over the mines, to show him, to warn him, to get him to shut the hell up already. This is a story that sneaks up on you, like a growing evening shadow that leaves a chill on your shoulders.
Always the Same. Till it is Not, by Cecil Castellucci – I am not a fan of zombie stories. This is a zombie story, and I loved the shit out of it. My enjoyment came from how the story was presented, from the style of the prose. I’m not being told “a story”, but watching a metamorphosis take place. Our nameless narrator is some type of zombie. Words are useless, vocabulary unecessary. Days consist of sleeping, night consists of feeding. The sky is yelled at, flesh is consumed, the horde moves on, often consuming its fallen members. They find themselves in a cemetery, and eat the flesh of the bodies that are presumably in shallow graves. Our narrator seems to realize this is a different place, a special place. When the horde moves on, he hides and stays. As is his lifestyle,he continues to consume the flesh found within the cemetery. And begins changing. As the protagonist’s mentality changes, the prose changes. Sentences that were fragments a few pages ago now have nuance and structure, thoughts that once consisted of “eat. sleep.” now involve complexity and forethought. He comes to understand that eating the flesh of those buried in the cemetery is what allowed him to change. If everyone in the horde ate of that flesh, perhaps this shambling shuffling disease could come to an end. When the horde returns, he knows what he has to do.
the Little Red Reviewer 
Recent Comments