I’m really happy to be participating in the blog tour for
The Book of Apex : Volume Four of Apex
Magazine, and I would like to thank
Little Red Reviewer for
organizing this fun month-long event in the SFF reviewing corner of the
internet.
The Book of
Apex : Volume Four of Apex Magazine is a collection of short fiction
published in year four of the Apex
Magazine. These stories are
weird, surprising, and generally carry a nice emotional punch. I enjoyed reading all of them. Some of them were by authors I was
familiar with, but others introduced me to new writers whose work I will most
likely enjoy in the future! Today,
I’m going to review a few of the ones that ended up being my favorites, and I’d
also like to remind you that I will be hosting a post from Thoraiya Dyer on February 22nd!
In Thoraiya Dyer’s The Second Card of the Major Arcana, someone has awakened a sphinx, which promptly
sets out to rid her realm of fools.
I think that feeling aggravation about the stupidity of some parts of
humanity is not unusual, and neither is a passing wish that the more foolish
parts of humanity simply did not exist.
Past that, though, most people would discard this passing idea as
immoral—for who could possibly decide with impartiality and accuracy which
humans deserved existence, and which did not? I’m fairly certain that anyone
who brings up this argument would consider themselves worthy of existence, but
that can only be a subjective decision.
In this story, someone has gone a step further, waking a
judge from ancient days to separate the wise from the fools. Of course, the definition of wisdom has
changed over the years, and the sphinx’s method of judgment may come as quite a
shock. Will the sphinx be able to find wisdom in the modern world?
A light-hearted response to a similar dilemma comes from Eugie Foster’s Trixie and the Pandas of Dread. Trixie is a young goddess whose domain is the smiting of
jerks. The level of jerks she
hunts are, for instance, people who leave racist comments on
Youtube videos. It’s easy to believe that humanity would be better off without these kinds of people, but, for reasons mentioned above, it’s also necessary
to accept that judging those who are or are not worthy of existence is an
impossible and immoral task. Of
course, within the confines of fiction, it can be positively hilarious to see
Trixie dealing out highly disproportionate punishments to minor offenders who
are just truly awful inside. I
have to say, though—unlike a certain character in the story—Trixie would not be
invited to my wedding!
Continuing with
the idea of judgment, there’s also Mari
Ness’s Labyrinth, where ritual
executioners wait in the center of a maze to ‘dance’ with the condemned. The main character accepts the sacred
duty of the dance, and she does not question the validity of their method. When she accompanies one of her daughters
in her first execution dance, though, things do not go as expected. I loved the form of this one, and the
balance of the story from beginning to end.
Another view of justice can be seen in Brit Mandelo’s Winter Scheming, in which the abusive Harvey is stalked
by a tawny owl that will not let her forget her crimes. I think it’s got to be hard to write an engaging story from a
villain’s point of view, without making
that villain in any way sympathetic.
It was uncomfortable to read Harvey’s words and actions, but I was very interested
to see that she was forced the face the consequences of her actions against a
woman from her past.
There were also some stories that projected forward certain
modern pop cultural and artistic trends.
For instance, Lettie Prell’s The Perfomance Artist, featured a modern artist who puts
together a very unusual exhibit.
Incorporating the idea of uploading human consciousness, she makes her
life an interactive work of art. I
thought this was a very creative approach to the idea of uploading minds, and I
could see this being a subject of art, were the technology ever available.
Other stories presented creative takes on reality
television. In Cat Rambo’s So Glad We Had This Time Together, supernatural creatures are put
together in a “Big Brother”-style reality show, a decision that proves to have
disastrous consequences. Sarah Dalton’s Sweetheart Showdown combines
beauty pageants, gladiatorial arenas, and the cultural obsession with youth,
beauty, and cuteness. Both
situations seemed shallow and commercial in the beginning, but moved forward to
surprisingly dark results.
In addition to this small collection of favorites, there are
many excellent stories in this collection that I have neglected to mention. If any of these stories strikes your
interest, The Book of Apex has these
and many more stories to offer!
