Lesley ConnerRezensionen

Favorites:

Every Shade of Healing by Taryn Frazier
Over Moonlit Clouds by Coda Audeguy-Pegon

Favorites:

Carnival Ever After by Mari Ness

Walking the Deep Down by Michelle Denham

So far only read:

~ Spitting Image by Rich Larson - 3*
Flash Fiction. Horror story. Creepy, well written with so few words but ultimately outside my interest. Stephen King style short story. I always got to check out RL's stories though.

Neat concept with a solid mixture of settings. A few of the stories were good. Most were not to my taste and a few were so bad I skipped to the next one part way through.

This is a really enjoyable magazine, with a little bit of something for everyone who reads the SFF genre. There's more fantasy-oriented stories, more science fiction-oriented stories, and even some stories that walk the line between SFF and horror. Nothing was too gory for my sensibilities, though I will admit that the fantasy stories were my favorites of the lot, and the horror-adjacent ones I liked the least.

“The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside” by Isabel J. Kim and “Walking the Deep Down” by Michelle Denham were my favorites from this magazine. I enjoyed the world building and characters in both of them. The latter struck me with how much it could pack into the flash fiction format.

Every story worth reading.

A bit of an oddity. A collection of short stories and poetry on the theme of victory in defiance. I’m not sure I liked it very much; some of the stories were rather grim (especially the version of The Little Match Girl) and in general I found it so-so. The poetry I thought was something of a waste of space.

OK if you like grim fiction.

Some interesting stories and poems but some too depressing for my taste.

There are a variety of settings within the anthology, some which you will be familiar with, others that feel fresh/new. The stories do not lead well into each other, it can feel like a very abrupt change and leave you slightly disoriented. There are some amazing short stories within this book, some that left me wishing I had not read them (very jarring and violent), and others that made me think about our current society and what was going on. The overall theme is to not give up and to fight for yourself/society/right/sometimes wrong. I am not disappointed that I read the book, but this is not a reread for me.

Often with anthologies, I end up wishing they were less of a mixed bag. With this, though, I wish there was more variety. Not of the premises themselves -- there is quite the variety of visions -- but of tone. Many of these stories are so dark and violent, I found myself cringing and repressing the urge to fling the text away (or, this being an e-book, delete it from all my devices). If I hadn't had more than one death in the family this year, maybe I'd feel differently.½

I loved the variety of stories in the book, from past to present to future and there is prose/poetry as well. My only complaint is that I wished that the author bios were alongside the stories as I couldn't remember who wrote what when I got to them at the end of the ebook. I love the cover. My favorite would have to be The Judith Plague as it really got me thinking.

I really enjoyed this book! Like most anthologies it was a bit mixed. One story, I did not finish because I did not like the writing style, but overall I thought the quality of the stories and poems were very high. I plan to try and find more works by some of the authors featured. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good anthology of speculative fiction.

I received a copy of this through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read it; I also backed the original anthology when it was a Kickstarter project.

This collection is solid, and the hope nuggets in each story and poem are really powerful. I will say I think a list of trigger warnings would have really aided this collection; the last two stories ("The Judith Plague" and especially "Kill the Darlings (Silicone Sister Remix)") are deeply powerful but definitely need to be approached with self-care in mind. (I've written about the inclusion of trigger warning indexes before, with Resilience, which is an example of it being done really well!)

Overall, this is a great collection of stories and poems with hope in despairing times, and may be really useful to folks looking for that in our current weird dystopia.

And e-ARC of this book was given to me by the publisher for review.

Like any anthology, I loved some stories more than others. In this case, even the stories that weren't favorites were thought-provoking and worth reading. The stories and poems are all on the same theme, without ever feeling repetitious.

This anthology of speculative fiction prose and poetry has no editorial content. Even the "about the authors" blurbs are collected at the end of the book rather than before or after the stories. I'd like to think that the stories would stand on their own without commentary, but...

Aside from the subtitle "An Anthology of Defiance in Victory" there is really no thread connecting this widely disparate collection. The subject, tone, and even subgenre of each story is completely unique. Which again, isn't a negative attribute; but the lack of an editorial voice makes this read like a random collection, each stumbled upon by accident. In some cases it's a happy accident, in some cases it isn't.

I enjoyed several of the poems more than I usually do. I don't actually understand poetry very well, so I'm not sure what that says about them.

The stories accumulate a bittersweet tone of frustration with a ray of hope. Quality ranges from excellent to just okay, with no real stinkers and no masterpieces. It's a really excellent set of authors, but in my opinion in most cases it's not the author's best work.

Overall it's definitely worth a read; nothing I can rave about, but no serious complaints.

A varied collection of short stories and a couple of poems themed around rebellion and protest. As might be expected in such collections, not everything suits my taste - there were two I activety disliked, but the rest varied between enjoyable and good. Such a broad theme of course leads to a wide range of settings and characters. There is as might be expected a strong feminist bent with many women rebelling against the various strictures placed against them as individuals, or as concepts they may represent. Technology and AI also has a strong presence with AI fighting for their rights or humanity reclaiming individuality.

There was nothing within the volume that induced me to seek out further writings from any of the authors, although many of the stories were unexpected none quite had the charm or twist to elevate them beyond okay.

Collection of short stories, poetry, and one novella. As with all collections, quality is uneven, but on the whole, the standards seem high. My favorite was THE JUDITH PLAGUE, about a group of women getting even, but all were definitely thought-provoking. This would be most useful in a creative writing setting, encouraging students to think for themselves.

My main problem with this anthology is that I don’t think the tittle does justice to the magazine. I can see that including award winning and nominated stories and reader’s favorites seems logical criteria, but unfortunately they have left out most of my favorite Apex’s stories (“During the Pause”, by Adam-Troy Castro or “Paperclips and Memories and Things That Won’t Be Missed”, by Caroline M. Yoachim, to mention just a couple of examples).

In any case, this collection is a great way to introduce readers to the kind of fiction they can find in this magazine devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror. And in my case, being already familiar with Apex, it has been the perfect opportunity to reread some of my favorite stories from Apex, like “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, by Rachel Swirsky, and to discover some new favorites, like “Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)”, by Ian Tregillis, a really pleasant surprise.½

An interesting collection of stories from the online science fiction/fantasy magazine http://www.apex-magazine.com. All the stories in the collection feature transformation in one form or another: animal to human, human to alien hybrid, human to robot, human to online data, human to chocolate, etc. Most of the transformations have metaphorical elements, such as in "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" but a few are straight up fantasy. The opening story "Jackalope Wives" works as both fantasy/horror and as feminist metaphor.

Review copy provided by LibraryThing.

I'd never heard of Apex Magazine until I took a chance on this best of collection of stories published over their first ten years. This is quite a mixed bunch, but most of them were very enjoyable. Some were stranger than others, but that's okay too. My favourites were probably 'Advertising at the End of the World', 'Build a Dolly', and 'She Gave Her Heart'. After reading this I'm tempted to consider taking out a subscription to the magazine, but we'll see what happens.

Collection of varied very short stories, nothing very memorable.½

Whether you know and love Apex Magazine already or pick this up as a taster, you'll find it's a little bundle of joy - assuming that nuanced, sometimes edgy speculative fiction that frequently left me in tears is your cup of tea. It's certainly mine. There are several award-winning shorts collected here along with a selection of the best of the first ten years - and it's been quite a decade.

That said, I found the second half much more to my taste than the first, with the exception of collection opener Jackalope Wives, which introduced me to one of my new favourite fictional characters, Grandma Harken (there's a follow-up tale in one of this year's issues, and I hope to see other adventures in due course).

Full review.

I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Dang. This is worth the price if just for the works by Vernon, Swirsky, and Liu; but it's a tremendous anthology all the way around. Highly recommended.

***** Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon
A 'selkie story' set in the southwest. This story manages to do something rare: it takes a familiar folktale/myth, gives us a truly authentic-feeling rendition, and adds something truly new (and significant), and something unexpected. Beautiful, and sad.

**** Going Endo by Rich Larson
Challenging, but ultimately heartwarming story. Future space battles are being fought by humans who interface with aliens in an extremely intimate way. Many see the alien beings simply as interchangeable tools, but one tech has been developing special feelings for one unique individual.

*** Candy Girl by Chikodili Emelumadu
Weird piece that rides the line between funny and disturbing. While visiting Nigeria for her traditional wedding ceremony, a young woman is struck by a strange ailment. Can her best friend find her the help she needs? Folk beliefs and modernity are nicely meshed here, and there's a well-done commentary on jealousy and possessiveness - but it wasn't really my 'thing.'

*** If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky
Previously read: "A poetic, short piece utilizing a thought-association format to gradually reveal a tragic scenario.
This was a Hugo-nominated piece (we read several short nominees in my book club this month), and it's not the only one that I felt really didn't belong under the speculative fiction umbrella. The only 'speculative' elements here are purely metaphorical.
I have to admit, upon beginning the story, I wasn't really a big fan of the style. As it progressed, my opinion of it as a piece of writing rose, however.
It's about grief, and crime, and the fallout that strikes victims of violence and those around them."

**** Advertising at the End of the World by Keffy R.M. Kehrli
Bit of a Ray Bradbury feel to this one, I thought, in its melancholy oddness. Alone in a cabin after the apocalypse, a woman is plagued by advertising robots that zombie-like, imitate ones' loved ones and insist on playing and replaying their outdated spiels.

*** The Performance Artist by Lettie Prell
Artist uses a new technology alleged to 'download' consciousness into a machine as part of a MoMA exhibition dealing with the intersection of flesh and technology. Is the performance brilliant and insightful art - or an exhibitionist suicide?

*** A Matter of Shapespace by Brian Trent
Anti-corporate-monopoly screed. A bit too heavy-handed with the allegory for me. However, the main idea is interesting: in the future, consciousness is cloud-based, and all physical matter is malleable and programmable. Obvious corollaries to this: who owns the 'rights' to your molecules, and what happens when the system glitches or is hacked? And of course, there're power struggles...

*** Falling Leaves by Liz Argall
The post-apocalyptic setting here is almost an afterthought: the focus is on the fraught and complex friendship between two high school girls. One is a recently-arrived refugee, the other from a 'landed' family, but both are outsiders and dealing with their own emotional issues. The dynamics here ring very true.

**** Blood from Stone by Alethea Kontis
A retelling of (or, more accurately, a prequel to) the dark and bloody fairy tale, "Fitcher's Bird."
A young maidservant is secretly enamoured of her master - who spends all his time in sorcerous experiments. She's ready & willing to do anything for him - and how far that 'anything' goes is more than a bit shocking.

*** Sexagesimal by Katharine E.K. Duckett
"Time is money" - quite literally, in this peculiar and sad vision of the afterlife. The dead live banal and ordinary lives of increasing solitude, as they trade away their memories for commodities. Two individuals are unusual in their cleaving to one another - but what are the reasons behind their attachment?

*** Multo by Samuel Marzioli
Nice horror/ghost story setup - but one of those inconclusive endings that are so popular these days. When a man receives an unexpected message from his childhood neighbor, stories - and events - he'd long forgotten are brought back to mind. He'd dismissed his youthful fears as imaginative fancies - but now the darkness comes rushing back.
Both the Filipino identity of the characters and the psychology of childhood are done very, very well.

*** Keep Talking by Marie Vibbert
On the one hand, I liked this piece's message about different types of communication, and how different modes of thought can complement each other. On the other hand, I do think it fell into the trap of romanticizing mental illness.
A professional translator, a dance instructor and a young autistic woman, already in the midst of some family drama, all react differently to Earth's first transmission from intelligent aliens.

*** Remembery Day by Sarah Pinsker
After a massively devastating war, a mechanism has been put in place so that traumatized veterans only remember their terrible experiences once a year, on a day set aside for a grand Memorial Day/Veterans' Day ceremony. The corollaries of such a decision are nicely explored here, from the perspective of one veteran's young daughter.

*** Blood on Beacon Hill by Russell Nichols
Weirdly tongue-in-cheek vampire tale. In a True-Blood-esque setting, one vampire, his fangs palatably filed down) is running for public office. However his wife wants to stop suppressing her true (unsavory) vampire nature, and their son, eternally stuck in the body of a 15-year-old, is entrapped, accused of the statutory rape of a human girl. Uses the reader's assumptions about prejudice and racism in an interesting way, but I didn't love it.

*** The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar
By coincidence, I read this shortly after finishing Trudi Canavan's 'Thief's Magic.' Both stories feature a woman who has been turned into a book by magic, and who can communicate with the 'reader' of the book by forming words on the page. Both feature a 'reader' who "falls in love" with the book/woman and involves the desire to restore her to a human body. This iteration of the theme is much more "literary" in form, but both touch upon many of the same issues.

**** L’esprit de L’escalier by Peter M. Ball
Grief, on the 'Endless Stairwell.' This story works very well both at face value - and as a metaphor for the 'downward spiral' of depression that the death of an intimate can throw one into.

**** Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale) by Ian Tregillis
Previously read in Strahan's 'Best SF&F of the Year, Vol 5'. Then, I said: "“Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)” by Ian Tregillis. In a land without time, a clockmaker messes with things in order to try to win the man she loves. Some nice ideas and imagery, but I was completely unconvinced that the character, as she was portrayed, would sacrifice herself for this guy." However, I liked it enough that I wanted to re-read it, and this time found myself enjoying the atmosphere and concepts enough to make up for the pointless self-sacrifice.

***** Build a Dolly by Ken Liu
Oh god, that was horrifying and sad. If you harbor any suspicion that self-aware toys for small children might be a good use of technology, just throw that idea out the window right now.
This one shoots right up to the top of the creepy-doll-story subgenre.

*** Armless Maidens of the American West by Genevieve Valentine
Some years back, the wonderful Terri Windling did a themed anthology using the fairytale trope of the 'armless maiden' as a metaphor for child abuse. (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/213417338). This story seems like it could've been custom-written for that anthology. I liked that anthology very much - but thought, at times, that it was a bit too much, or too obvious with the messages and the metaphors. I felt the same way about this one.

**** Pocosin by Ursula Vernon
Previously read. " A dying 'possum god asks sanctuary at the cottage of a swamp witch. Reluctantly, the witch must speak to both god and the devil on the ancient deity's behalf.
Vernon wonderfully captures the feeling of an authentic folktale here. it's also a bit reminiscent of 'Anansi Boys' or 'American Gods' Neil Gaiman. "

**** She Gave Her Heart, He Took Her Marrow by Sam Fleming
After a devastating, zombie-ish plague, a young, mentally ill woman seems to be the sole survivor in an affected zone. Abandoned by her lover, she survives by trading with a walled community. She's alone, except for her dog - and a being who might be an alien... or a fae... or an imaginary companion... or something else altogether. One woman seems to want to rescue her from her solitary fate... but nothing might be exactly as it seems. Really well-done. And creepy.

Many thanks to Apex Books for the opportunity to read this collection. Not a dud in it!

I didn't like this collection _quite_ as much as the World book from Apex, but I liked all of the writing and most of the stories.

Enough of them were evocative without closure to keep me from devouring it, but even those painted fantastic worlds. I'm more plot driven than most, but if you are here for the new angle alone, they've got you.