Apex #127, November/December 2021
“To Seek Himself Again” by Marie Croke
“This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” by Izzy Wasserstein
“In Haskins” by Carson Winter
“Whose Mortal Taste” by Erin K. Wagner
“Hank in the South Dakota Sun” by Stephanie Kraner
“I Call Upon the Night as Witness” by Zahra Mukhi
“Dogwood Stories” by Nicole Givens Kurtz (reprint, not reviewed)
“Thresher of Men” by Michael Boatman (reprint, not reviewed)
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Guest editor Lesley Conner (normally serving as the magazine’s managing editor) provides half a dozen new stories. Many of the tales deal with questions of identity, and what it means to be alive.
“To Seek Himself Again” by Marie Croke takes place in a fantasy world where people trade parts of their bodies with those of animals, even their voices. A man who has been greatly altered in this way, and makes a living by providing such parts to customers, meets an unchanged woman. She bullies him into getting her a witch’s eye, without offering part of herself in return. The woman takes the man and the witch on a quest to greatly change the world in which they live.
The premise is intriguing, and the author provides detailed, vivid descriptions of the strange people and animals who inhabit this place. It is clear from the start that the woman is the villain of the piece, and that her desire to end the alterations is wrongheaded. The man’s wish to remain changed is shown as correct. The witch’s attitude is more obscure, and her function in the story (except to provide the eye the woman needs) is unclear. The story can be read as an effective fable about self-determination, but the woman might be seen by some readers as too one-dimensional an antagonist.
The world of “This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” by Izzy Wasserstein is also one of magic, but otherwise resembles a near future dystopia. The main character fled an anarchist commune when police raided it, leaving her friends to die. Wracked with guilt, she seeks to change the past through various forms of magic. Witches who deal with fate, chance, and time all fail to help her, but she finds another way to deal with her painful memories.
The title may give a hint as to the intensity of this story’s emotional content, which some readers may feel is overly melodramatic. The mixture of an authoritarian future and an underground network of magic-users is interesting, but the two themes do not always blend together smoothly. The story is not overtly political, but the author’s sympathies seem to lie with anarchism, or at least strong anti-authoritarianism.
“In Haskins” by Carson Winter is an eerie tale in which people swap masks at a festival. When this happens, they also change identities. A young engaged couple go through this bizarre ceremony. The woman becomes an abusive husband, while the man becomes a shy girl. They also retain memories of their previous lives. The woman-who-is-now-a-man finds a particularly gruesome way of continuing her/his relationship with the man-who-is-now-a-girl.
The author seems intent on chilling the reader’s bones, and does so successfully. The logic of the surreal premise is questionable, as the people both change physically and yet continue to wear masks. This irrationality may be intentional, to enhance the story’s nightmarish mood.
In “Whose Mortal Taste” by Erin K. Wagner, a group of robots sets out to revive a man in suspended animation after humanity has become extinct. Although their motives differ, the main purpose is to determine if he will accept them as truly alive. Their encounter ends with an ironic question.
The robots, who combine mechanical components with bird-like elements, are interesting and come across as distinctive, complex characters. The man, who only appears briefly, is less developed. I found the ending enigmatic, and the intent of the robot’s question opaque.
Another sentient machine appears in “Hank in the South Dakota Sun” by Stephanie Kraner. In this case, the device is an intelligent train. During a long trip across the USA, the driver has to tell the train that it is out of date and is going to be deactivated. The train’s response causes the driver to change his own life as well.
The author pulls at the reader’s heartstrings in this openly sentimental story. The idea that trains will continue to be an important form of transportation in a future full of artificial intelligences may be hard to accept, but readers who are fond of railroads are sure to enjoy this tearjerker.
“I Call Upon the Night as Witness” by Zahra Mukhi is the author’s first published work. In this strange future world, lines are drawn that instantly force people out of where they live, turning them into stateless refugees. They survive in tiny rooms in gigantic buildings, partly underground, in lands that are not part of any nation. The protagonist loses her home in this way, and adjusts to life inside the enormous, overcrowded building.
The story seems intended as an allegory for the desperation of refugees in the real world, thrown out of their homelands by forces they cannot fight or understand. As such, it is a powerful indictment of how the powerful oppress the weak. The story ends just when it reaches an important turning point, and one wishes that the author had continued.
Victoria Silverwolf reviewed both the reprinted stories for Tangent Online when they were first published.