On her way out of the coffee shop, Harvey flashed a last flirtatious grin at the blonde barista behind the counter. The girl lifted her hand in a wave, smiling, before the door shut between them. A surge of warmth rolled down to Harvey’s toes.
Read MoreWinter SchemingOh. Listen to the music. Men winding their way home, tired as a birth, tired as a death. The slow death in the mines. Half-broken from cramped agony chopping coal with blunt tools. In the dusk, a choir to sing their way home to sad streets and towns.
Read MoreIn the DarkI dreamed this in Sihanoukville, a town of new casinos, narrow beaches, hot bushes with flowers that look like daffodils, and even now, after nine years of peace, stark ruined walls with gates that go nowhere.
In the dream, I get myself a wife. She’s beautiful, blonde, careworn.
Read MoreBlockedIt’s not just me, right? The Gothic novel is ripe for a comeback. This particular sub-genre has been creeping into my subconscious for some time, and not just because I accidentally went to a lecture the other month on the Female Gothic in Film, which quoted Joanna Russ and made me squee like the fan girl I am.
Read MoreGirl Meets House: Kitchen Sinks, Joanna Russ and the Female GothicAPEX MAGAZINE: You've written both SF/Fantasy and literary fiction. Did you begin with one and stretch out into the other? Or have you always written a broad variety of genres/styles?
Read MoreAn Interview with Geoff Ryman
In this issue, I’m sharing an eclectic group of works that took my breath away when I read them. Brit Mandelo writes of anger, domestic abuse, and retribution in “Winter Scheming.” Ian Nichols’s “In the Dark,” is a frightening tale of all-consuming darkness from a Welsh mine.
Read MoreBlood on Vellum: Notes from the Apex Magazine Editor-in-ChiefNew Year’s celebrations crashed through the streets of Whitcry in a din of masks and swirling petticoats. Pottery smashed against cobbles, women’s shouts echoed from garrets, men groaned and fought and pissed.
Read MoreDecompositionThe 2029 Northern California Human Resources Conference and Exposition would have long ago gone bankrupt if it had relied solely on the registration fees of the business-suited organization men and women who filled the convention floor.
Read MoreTomorrow’s DictatorUlu lay on her chubby belly playing with her new chemistry set. The living room was her favorite place in the house with its cool wooden floor and many ebony lions, masks and warriors her father liked to collect.
Read MoreThe Chaos Magician’s Mega Chemistry Set