Apex magazine is an excellent science fiction/fantasy (SFF) magazine. It prints short fiction from the SFF field from established and new authors. Editors Sizemore and Conners put together a book full of their 2021 stories, and it’s fantastic. In Apex Magazine 2021, Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conners have collected their stories from 2021 in one massive package. I like Apex, and while I don’t read every issue, I read stories from there. Again, I’m not great at reading the short fiction field, but I’m trying to be better. So, the chance to review Apex Magazine 2021 was too good for me to pass. Sure it’s a year behind, but it’s a start. And oh what a start it is. Apex Magazine 2021 features 48 excellent short fiction offerings.
Special Note: Amazon has changed its policy with regards to magazine subscriptions. Michael Damian Thomas of Uncanny Magazine said it best on Twitter, “This Kindle news […] is an extinction-level event for the ecosystem unless we all figure something out.” I don’t know if this applies to Apex magazine or not; I didn’t go looking for their status. However, if you enjoy short fiction and/or believe in supporting working authors, editors, and everyone that it takes to bring excellent science fiction into the world, consider getting a subscription at Weightless Books or support magazines through their Patreon pages. Short fiction is where the SFF stars of tomorrow are playing right now. Please, help support those magazines if you’re able. Thank you.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
© PrimmLife.com 2023
TL;DR
Apex Magazine 2021 edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner is a fantastic collection from one of the best literary magazines online today. These stories are beautiful, fun, heartbreaking, entertaining, and worth your time. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
With stories by Alix E. Harrow, Sam J. Miller, Sheree Renée Thomas, Cassandra Khaw, and many more, Apex Magazine 2021 is a collection of darkly beautiful tales appearing originally in Apex Magazine January-December 2021. From a spaceship in the far-flung reaches of space to a cozy living room where a detective interviews a killer, this anthology explores the good and the ugly. It dissects what makes us human versus what makes us monsters.
Within these pages, you will meet a golem that doesn’t know how to save its family, a group of robots debating whether they are alive, and a woman striving for that social media-perfect life. From parasitic twins to a hospital dreamscape, to a town full of people wearing masks, this anthology will take you on journeys you never could have expected.
Come with us and discover the 48 surreal, strange, shocking, and beautiful stories in Apex Magazine 2021.
Review: Apex Magazine 2021
Forty-eight stories filled with creativity, wonder, and joy are too much for me to review; so, this review is for the whole collection, even if I single out a few stories. As a whole, Apex Magazine 2021 blew me away. Whether established names in SFF short fiction, like Rachel Swirsky, E. Catherine Tobler, Charles Payseur, etc. or authors that are new to me like Renan Bernardo or Tlotlo Tsamaase, this book is filled with entertaining fiction. The offerings are varied enough that readers will get a good idea about the tastes of Apex’s editors. Swirksy’s dreamlike story delights. Cassandra Khaw’s story reminded me of a fairy tale. Charles Payseur delivers a flash fiction story full of holiday horror for Christmas time. Renan Bernardo tells a story of destruction and community.
Apex Magazine 2021 is 48 unique stories, and any SFF fan will find multiple that they enjoy in this collection. As with any anthology, the tone, style, and perspectives vary quite a bit. The only theme is that these stories came from Apex in 2021, but that doesn’t mean it’s a messy pile of stories. On the contrary, it’s a lovely buffet of creativity and imagination.
"Mr. Death" by Alix E. Harrow
When I read this story, I was sitting in my doctor’s waiting room, ready for my yearly physical. I finished it there in those uncomfortable chairs surrounded by the sick and those annoyed it was taking to so long to get called back. I couldn’t stop looking at it from the moment the narrator gets his assignment. In 2021, I became a father, and it changed me in many ways. Stories about dying kids are now exponentially more horrifying. Yet, the care Harrow gives to the subject kept me glued to the page. When I finished the story, I just sat there in a state of awe. I was so wrapped up in the world of the story that I missed the first time the nurse called my name to take me back to the exam rooms. The narrator is a form(?), a splinter(?) of death. He’s one of the ferryman who take the souls from the land of the living to the beyond. But he wasn’t always a ferryman; he was once a living man, a father himself. The difficult task of a child’s passing has fallen to him. Does he help the child cross over?
Harrow’s story is amazing, and she did some wonderful worldbuilding to support it. I loved the idea that former humans get to help souls cross into the afterlife. But Harrow also gives them a bureaucracy and rules. It’s fantastic.
For me, this story shone heads and above all the others. It’s the best short story I’ve read since “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. It hit me hard in the feels, and, though I’m new to parenthood, “Mr. Death” tugged those strings in the most scary and yet satisfying way. This might be the best story – period – that I’ve read since “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. It’s a story that I wish I could forget just so I could experience it anew all over again. Thank you Alix E. Harrow, and thank you Apex magazine. It’s a story I’ll never forget.
Conclusion
Apex magazine had a great year in 2021. These 48 stories offer something for each and every SFF fan. When reviewing SFF and horror novels, I’ve said that we’re in a golden age of content. Apex Magazine 2021 shows that SFF & horror short fiction is also in its own golden age. This is a collection that shouldn’t be missed. Highly recommended.
Apex Magazine 2021 edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner is available from Apex Book Company now.
© PrimmLife.com 2023
8 out of 10!
“Root Rot” — Fargo Tbakhi
“Your Own Undoing” — P H Lee
“Love, That Hungry Thing” — Cassandra Khaw
“Mr. Death” — Alix E. Harrow
“The Niddah” — Elana Gomel
“All I Want for Christmas” — Charles Payseur
“Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts” — Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
“Barefoot and Midnight” — Sheree Renée Thomas
“The Amazing Exploding Women of the Early Twentieth Century” — A.C. Wise
“Black Box of the Terraworms” — Barton Aikman
“If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run” — Annie Neugebauer
“A Love That Burns Hot Enough to Last: Deleted Scenes From a Documentary” — Sam J. Miller
“The Life and Death of Mia Fremont: An Interview with a Killer” — A.K. Hudson
“This Is the Moment, Or One of Them” — Mari Ness
“Throw Rug” — Aurelius Raines II
“Mishpokhe and Ash” — Sydney Rossman-Reich
“All This Darkness” — Jennifer R. Donohue
“DEMON FIGHTER SUCKS” — Katherine Crighton
“Eilam Is Forever” — Beth Dawkins
“Without Wishes to Bind You” — E. Catherine Tobler
“How to be Good” — R. Gatwood
“Osu” — Kingsley Okpii
“Survival, After” — Nicole J. LeBoeuf
“What Sisters Take” — Kelly Sandoval
“Cottonmouth” — Joelle Wellington
“Next to Cleanliness” — Rose Keating
“Discontinuity” — Jared Millet
“Candyland” — Maggie Slater
“Gift for the Cutter Man” — D. Thomas Minton
“Wake Up, I Miss You” — Rachel Swirsky
“Security Breach at Sugar Pine Suites” — Pamela Rentz
“Happy Trails” — Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.
“Marked by Bears” — Jessie Loyer
“Spirits of the Broken Lands” — Kevin Wabaunsee
“When Evening Arrives” — Tiffany Morris
“An Incident at Hellpoint Prime” — Norris Black
“To Seek Himself Again” — Marie Croke
“This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” — Izzy Wasserstein
“In Haskins” — Carson Winter
“Whose Mortal Taste” — Erin K. Wagner
“Hank in the South Dakota Sun” — Stephanie Kraner
“I Call Upon the Night as Witness” — Zahra Mukhi
“Soil of Our Home, Storm of Our Lives” — Renan Bernardo
“Robin’s Last Song” — Nina Munteanu
“Godmother” — Cheryl S. Ntumy
“The synchronism of touch” — Gabriela Damián Miravete
“Dreamports” — Tlotlo Tsamaase
“Samsāra in a Teacup” — Lavanya Lakshminarayan