Apex Magazine, May 2010



Title: Apex Magazine, May 2010
Rating: 4/5

Original Fiction:
The Last Stand of the Ant Maker by Paul Jessup
City of Refuge by Jerry Gordon
Interview:
DARK FAITH Roundtable: Gary A. Braunbeck, Jay Lake, Nick Mamatas, and Catherynne M. Valente

This issue features items from Apex's Dark Faith anthology, which looks interesting -- and if the two stories are an indication of the quality, then I'm all over it.

'City of Refuge' by Jerry Gordon was my hands down favorite -- I'm a sucker for dystopias anyway, never mind ones involving the undead and underground religious movements.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaser Tuesday, August 1: Hippos!

Image
My teaser for today comes from River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. It's a novella that imagines 1890s Louisiana as if an insane idea had really been brought to fruition: hippos were bred in the Delta for meat.

Our hero, Winslow Houndstooth, is a hippo rancher, hired to do a mysterious job in a part of Louisiana thick with violent, feral hippos. He assembles a crack team, and as you can probably tell from my summary so far, it's a bananas story. (But so, so intriguing!)

"I think you've only been retired for a year, and already, you'd poison a stranger just to break up the monotony." (p22)
The sequel, Taste of Marrow, comes out next month.

So, what do you think? Would you read more? What are you reading right now?
Read more

Winter 2017 Bloggiesta To Do Post

Image
I love Bloggiesta for reminding me to brush up and take of my blog, and doing it "in community", so to speak, makes this housework a little more fun.

Given my earlier whining about feeling out-of-it with my blog, I'm really excited there's a mini-event this coming weekend in which I can do some backend work here.

My to do list is pretty simple:
make a top 10 of 2016 post (even if it is just a list!)review the book I just finished!I'd like to start 2017 without a backlog of reviews, so it feels important I keep up. We'll see if I'll tackle my 2016 backlog. (Perhaps for another Bloggiesta!)
Read more

Mailbox Monday, July 24

Image
It's been a long time since I've done a Mailbox Monday post, but I've gotten some fun arrivals, so I thought I'd share.

Have you gotten your hands on any of these? What new arrivals are you excited about?



The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily by Laura Creedle



The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa



Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon



Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker



The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
Yesterday by Felicia Yap
Read more

Book Review: See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Image
First line: He was still bleeding.

This book is delicious.

It's also so bonkers. But delightfully so.

This debut novel explores the infamous Borden murders, opening with when the first body is found. The novel then shifts to two days before, and eventually, the days after the murder, and the story unfolds through Lizzie, her sister Emma, their maid Bridget, and Benjamin, an itinerant stranger.

Everyone in this book -- save for Bridget -- are awful. If one couldn't think of a reason for the murders, Schmidt offers a handful. The novel is creepy but not gory (just right for me), and there's a wonderfully claustrophobic feel to the narrative. It's a story, too, about frustrated ambitions and passions, petty jealousies and dysfunctional love. (I was reminded a bit of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which made me wonder if Jackson was inspired at all by the Borden murders and if Schmidt had been inspired by Jackson...)

My only complaint about this …
Read more