Reviewed by Chuck Rothman
The February issue of Apex is billed as a “Special Shakespeare Edition,” with the stories and nonfiction all concentrating on aspects of Shakespeare or his work. It’s a nice idea for a theme, and the three original stories (there is one reprint) take various aspects of the plays as a central theme.
“Mad Hamlet’s Mother” is a retelling of the actions of the play, this time from the point of view of Gertrude. Patricia C. Wrede cleverly knits the facts of the play to explain some of Gertrude’s motivations (including why she married Claudius). It gives the play a different meaning, a very impressive feat.
Merrie Haskell contributes another Hamlet story, “Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love.” It focuses on the Robot!Ophelia, who performs at the AutoGlobe, where the play is recreated as it was done by various actors in the past. After one performance, she vows, “I will not die for love tonight” and leaves the stage and theater to meet Zebulon Vance, a human named after an obscure politician, who she is surprised to discover is not a robot. The relationship between Ophelia and Vance is the heart of the story and it manages to be romantic and quite charming.
“The Face of Heaven So Fine” by Kat Howard leaves Hamlet and goes on to Romeo and Juliet, where Rose meets Juliet, who takes multiple lovers and then cuts out a star-shaped portion of their flesh in order to memorialize her dead boyfriend. The story is very poetic, but the images don’t really make up for the lack of any real logic to what is going on. What Juliet is doing doesn’t make much sense, and I also didn’t find Rose’s reaction to it anything more than a poetic conceit.
There’s also a reprint of a Kate Elliot story about Macbeth on an alien world, plus Sara Monette’s take on how to interpret Hamlet. The stories were weighed down a bit by the Shakespeare theme; interesting, but not engaging.