Apex #135, January/February 2023
“The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside” by Isabel J. Kim
“Carnival Ever After” by Mari Ness
“The Immortal Game” by Lindz McLeod
“River Bargain Baby” by K.S. Walker
“Daughter, Mother, Charcoal” by Akis Linardos
“The Wreck of the Medusa” by Jordan Kurella
“Experimental Protocol for the Coronal Sectioning and Assessment of a Human Soul” by Sagan Yee
“Walking the Deep Down” by Michelle Denham
“Message in a Vessel” by V.G. Harrison (reprint, not reviewed)
“Your Rover is Here” by LP Kindred (reprint, not reviewed)
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
In addition to original fiction and reprints, this issue contains articles, interviews, and reviews. All of the new stories are fantasy, with settings ranging from the modern world to historical times to places that never existed. Of interest is the fact that the magazine now offers a pair of flash fiction works with every issue, each story based on a particular theme.
“The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside” by Isabel J. Kim is the issue’s longest story, close to a novelette. In a fantasy version of modern New York City, the protagonist, always addressed as “you,” takes what he assumes will be a temporary job with a corporation run by magical beings from another dimension. Those who agree to work for these entities have their greatest desires granted, but lose them if they leave. Those who remain permanently, to become so-called partners, change to resemble their employers, and stop caring about their human lives. The protagonist hopes to avoid either fate because he has no particular desire. He accepts the job because it pays well and will look good on a resumé.
Complications ensue when the protagonist begins a love affair with another worker. His supervisor offers a Faustian bargain. The company will allow the loved one to keep the desire offered for employment without having to remain with the corporation, thus remaining fully human. In return, the protagonist must agree to become a permanent partner. The protagonist is torn between granting his beloved a completely happy life at the cost of his own humanity, or having his lover become a partner and lose all human emotions.
I trust that this lengthy synopsis does not give too much away. I have avoided describing the lover’s desire, which lies at the heart of the story, or how the dilemma is resolved. The premise is worth discussing in some detail, because it is an unusual and intriguing one.
The use of second person present tense adds little or nothing to the story, and runs the risk of sounding pretentious. Although most of the narrative is written in a clear, realistic style, there is frequent repetition of the phrases “swords and sacrifice” and “red heart and good intentions.” These appear to be intended as metaphors, but their meaning escapes me.
“Carnival Ever After” by Mari Ness is a brief tale about a woman who produces toads and snakes from her mouth when she speaks, performing this bizarre task as a circus act. A king is married to her sister, who produces gems in the same way. He arrives at the circus, begging the woman to return to the castle from which she ran away.
The magazine’s editorial states that this story is a sequel to or variation on the fairy tale “Diamonds and Toads” by the seventeenth century French author Charles Perrault. Without this information, the reader is likely to see it as a pointless exercise in surrealism. Familiarity with the original adds depth to the present work, rendering it an interesting but minor tale.
“The Immortal Game” by Lindz McLeod takes the form of several short paragraphs, each one introduced by one or more moves in a chess game. The plot deals with a woman who uses her feminine wiles to lure men to her room, where they meet a terrible fate.
This brief horror story builds to an appropriately gruesome climax, which also involves chess. At first, the reader may expect the woman to be a vampire or some other familiar monster, but the tale’s resolution is much more original. Chess purists may be disappointed by the fact that the moves described in the text make no sense, and are impossible to follow on a chess board. Possibly this is intentional, to add a touch of unreality.
(It might be noted here that “the immortal game” is the nickname for a famous game between chess masters Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851. It is also the title of a 1954 story by Poul Anderson, in which computers recreate the same game in a sort of virtual reality. The present work bears no resemblance to Anderssen’s famous victory or Anderson’s well-known story.)
“River Bargain Baby” by K.S. Walker alternates between third person narration, dealing with a girl who accepts a dare to wade into a dangerous river, and first person narration by the supernatural being who dwells in the water. The reader learns of the girl’s true origin, and of the being’s plans for her.
This brief backwoods fantasy has a great deal of local color and a unique mythology. The being in the river speaks in dialect, which some readers may find to be a questionable choice. Others may find it appropriate for this kind of trickster entity.
“Daughter, Mother, Charcoal” by Akis Linardos is a bit longer than the previous three stories, although well under three thousand words. The narrator lives in a world where women cannot leave their homes, at risk of being taken away by supernatural beings. Instead, they must keep fires burning in their hearths at all times to keep the beings away, feeding the flames parts of their bodies until they are only bones in the ashes. The men go outside safely to earn a living and to bring back other men to impregnate their daughters, continuing the cycle.
The story follows the narrator from childhood. In youth, she dares to venture outside secretly, using a candle to protect herself from the beings. As an adult, she witnesses her daughter’s journey to the outside world.
This moody fantasy can be read as a feminist allegory for women being trapped in their households and forced to sacrifice themselves for others. If so, it is interesting to note that it was written by a man (judging by the author’s photograph and the pronouns used in the biographical note.) In any case, one has to wonder why nobody else ever figured out what the narrator discovers when she sees what becomes of her daughter.
“The Wreck of the Medusa” by Jordan Kurella is the issue’s second longest story, although it does not come close to novelette length. The narrator, born a girl, lives as a boy and goes to sea on a pirate ship. The vessel is trapped in a cursed region of the sea and the sailors face starvation. A mysterious female creature in the ocean communicates with the narrator with the struggle to become a man. Meanwhile, an attempted mutiny and a violent storm add danger.
Much of the narrative resembles a swashbuckling sea adventure. The fantasy content is not strictly necessary to the plot, if you can accept the fact that a girl could disguise herself as a boy, although it adds depth to the character. (I could not tell if the narrator remained a girl in body or underwent a change in sex in some magical way, and this may not be an important point.) Readers who enjoy this kind of red-blooded seafaring yarn may find the addition of the female creature an intriguing touch of the supernatural.
(One might wonder whether the author was influenced by The Raft of the Medusa, a famous painting by the nineteenth century French artist Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault, which was based on a true disaster in which the survivors of a shipwreck resorted to murder and cannibalism on a small raft, reducing their number from 147 to 15 at the time of rescue.)
“Experimental Protocol for the Coronal Sectioning and Assessment of a Human Soul” by Sagan Yee is the first of two pieces of flash fiction. This one was inspired by the theme “dissected.” As the title implies, it describes, in medical terminology, the surgical removal of a person’s soul by entities judging it in the afterlife. These sections of the narrative alternate with the person’s memories, particularly guilt over what seems like a very small incident. The overall mood is a very cold one, resulting in a quietly disturbing horror story.
“Walking the Deep Down” by Michelle Denham was inspired by the theme “footsteps in the forest.” A woman takes the severed finger of an older woman into the desert, where she will be eaten by a monster unless she brings it the right kind of story. Within this seemingly simple plot, the author manages to include a great deal of supernatural folklore, as well as the themes of the nature of stories and the loss of one’s ancestral culture, a remarkable achievement in such a short space.
Victoria Silverwolf is a lousy chess player.