Apex Digest #12

Issue 12 is Apex Digest’s first “Double Issue,” packing a wallop of names from Apex regulars Cherie Priest to Brian Keene and the conclusion of Geoffrey Girard’s “Cain XP11.”

First up is “Death Comes for All” by Brian Keene and Steven L. Shrewsbury, the castaway tale of two Nordic-inspired sailors whose latest adventure is being shipwrecked on a cursed island after being attacked by pirates. There’s a unique world here, but it isn’t exactly science fiction, and the reader never sees the world past the beach. This is a dark tale, and a solid one, embracing the warrior life and mentality, but it’s more straight horror than a typical Apex tale.

Next is Cherie Priest’s “The Heavy,” about a rather large man who specializes in taking care of very special problems. Here, The Heavy has been called in to catch a mysterious goat killer who has already gained a bit of infamy for taking bullets without even a pause. Another straight horror tale, “The Heavy”’s tone and style match up nicely with its predecessor, with an added touch of humor.

“To Know How to See” by Michael West brings readers their first taste of science fiction this issue. Set on the border between space madness and squid-aliens, it follows the degradation of Sean, a man who is part of a deep space exploration mission, gathering data for potential settlers. Whether it’s deep space madness or genuine first contact is batted around, but Sean’s life takes a definite turn for the worst in this blood-tinged tale.

“I Can’t Look at the City” by Jim Stewart examines a future in which we found another inhabited planet, spired with dark graceful towers, and three days later, the probe is taken out by an orbital collision, ending any chance of communication. The world as we know it undergoes several monumental changes, only partially due to this failure, leaving the economic system in a state closer to old world goods booths and bartering. Even though speaking of the lost Babylon—and the sciences that exposed it to the masses—draws suspicions and KGB-like threats, Robby seeks out Doctor Octopus, a man who was once a physicist and now makes startlingly accurate models of the Babylon ziggurats. But the doctor has a secret he’s eager to share, and Robby, thinking it’s the secret to the creation of such lifelike models, is more than willing to stick around and figure it out. Different because it focuses on the effects the loss of alien communication has on humanity rather than the invasion or influences of alien societies, this tale spins a new worry into the speculative future of nano technology.

Paul Jessup’s “PostFlesh” is a poetic tale of a planetary shipwreck. It’s a hopped up, tech-charged version of the first tale, “Death Comes For All.” When a motley crew lands on Shadrim, they find machines and corpses, all somehow enmeshed together into a planetary collective. Shadrim is determined to have the new beings on its surface, while they are (rightly) desperate to escape. The visual power of the prose makes this one of the best in this issue.

“Covenant” by Lavie Tidhar is a setting-based tale of a group of Israelis, long after they left their settlement on Mars and crash landed on another strange planet. With parasitic yarmulkes, strange aliens known as Nephilim, and the gray fungus that makes life for the future Hebrews possible, “Covenant” is a strange, decidedly different take on the sterile, religion-less reaches of space fiction.

“Broken Strand” by Maurice Broaddus brings readers back to Earth, but maintains a flavoring of religious context. A mad scientist calls back his college assistant, who is drawn more by the ex-professor’s daughter than the fatherly professor himself. But what the professor has in mind has already claimed victims, all for the sake of cleansing sin from the human soul. A blend of science and religion gone bad, “Broken Strand” benefits from the lack of faith—and at times, the seeming lack of emotion—of the main character, who gets more than he bargained for in this reunion.

“Feverish Solutions” by Ryck Neube has nearly all the hallmarks of a classic Apex Digest story. It begins with a gray market deal where one gypsy woman arranges to sell another to a rich group of cannibals. The plot grows complicated from there. Neube spins a three-dimensional tale of exclusive future policies and wandering grain ships filled with the unwanted detritus of society who seem to have taken all the slurs to heart and are determined to prove their stereotypes true. Futuristic viruses and racial crimes are facilitated by the vacuum and isolation of space. And just when the reader feels for Delta Nolana, hoping she succeeds in saving a ship full of people who couldn’t care less about her, the tale comes to a clinching and ironic end.

Utilizing shorthand more effectively than most instant messengers or texters could imagine, “Clementine” by Joy Marchand is a star in this issue. Featuring two strong characters, a woman who is so mentally damaged that she essentially sleepwalks through life, yet who is still aware, and Clementine, who has also found a startling, creepy way to communicate with the people around her. If readers can get past the shorthand style, they’ll find a sad, longing story of desperation and love.

Slipped in amongst all the fiction is a bit of poetry, “Solomon’s Bad Luck” by Brandy Schwan. The dark poetess shows readers a bit of her playfully cruel side with a poem about a man who toyed with depression until it lost its patience.

One of the heavy hitters for this issue is the final installment of Geoffery Girard’s “Cain XP11: The Wicked King.” A fast and vicious sum up, there’s little character development in this part, just the ends coming together and Girard, like a cosmic cat, ending his play session with the good soldier Becker and the waves of serial killer clones.

“Curve Balls in the Rift” by Durand Welsh is a short tale of an almost magical end to the world. The main character was once a farmer, like his father and grandfather before him, but now instead of mending fences for cattle, he’s mending the fences that keep the strange chimerical rifts from spreading and swallowing the whole area. Heavily reminiscent of the movie Field of Dreams, it certainly presents a different kind of planetary end. The surrealism and realism of the plot are reflected in the prose, striking a strange and interesting balance.

Summing up this double issue is “Dear Diary” by Sara Genge. Diary-style stories are often heavily done, but this one combines a childish voice and a touch of fantasy that ties together the first two pieces of the issue and the middle, religious-toned ones. A surly little girl rages against her mother who makes her kill the “gods” in their basement and destroy her “dead god collection” in an effort to keep the ministers off their backs. But mother, daughter notices, has a bit of a secret.

While it’s not as “edgy” or interconnected as previous issues, Apex Digest #12 still offers dark science fiction from a number of recognizable names.