Apex Magazine Issue 100: Apex Magazine, #100

By Jason Sizemore

Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction.

EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

FICTION
Tumbledown — Kameron Hurley
The Man in the Crimson Coat — Andrea Tang
Bad Penny — Carrie Laben
The Lightning Bird — Kristi DeMeester
While the Black Stars Burn — Lucy A. Snyder

NONFICTION
Interview with Kameron Hurley — Andrea Johnson
Apex at 100: An Introspective — Jason Sizemore and et al.
In Space, Can Anyone Hear Your Philosophy?: A Look at Alien and Philosophy with Editor/Contributor Jeffrey Ewing — M. B. Sutherland
Interview with Cover Artist Carolina Rodiguez Fuenmayor — Russel Dickerson

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Publications
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201652920

Jason Sizemore

Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

Book preview

Apex Magazine

Issue 100, September 2017

Andrea Tang Kameron Hurley Lucy A. Snyder Kristi DeMeester Carrie Laben

Edited by

Jason Sizemore

Contents

Words from the Editor-in-Chief by Jason Sizemore

Tumbledown by Kameron Hurley

Interview with Kameron Hurley by Andrea Johnson

The Man in the Crimson Coat by Andrea Tang

Apex at 100: An Introspective by Jason Sizemore and et al.

Sponsor: The Sword and the Dragon by MR Mathias

Bad Penny by Carrie Laben

The Lightning Bird by Kristi DeMeester

In Space, Can Anyone Hear Your Philosophy?: A Look at Alien and Philosophy with Editor/Contributor Jeffry Ewing by M.B. Sutherland

While the Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder

Interview with Cover Artist Carolina Rodiguez Fuenmayor by Russell Dickerson

Sponsor: King Queens Heroes and Fools by MR Mathias

Next Month in Apex Magazine

Copyrights and Acknowledgments

Website & Newsletter Info

Contributor Bios

From Apex Book Company: Throne of the Bastards

From Apex Book Company: Everything That’s Underneath

Words from the Editor-in-Chief by Jason Sizemore

Welcome to issue 100 of Apex Magazine!

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Sort of unbelievable, right? The internet is where ideas flame to life, burn brightly, then die. And if you forced my hand to a Bible (aka The Chicago Manual of Style) at this very second, I would tell you that eight years and four months ago when the first issue came out I would not have expected to reach 100 issues.

It’s not that I didn’t believe in the zine. On the contrary, it’s the one creative element I’ve never tired of doing. Unlike other aspects of my life where I tend to grow easily bored, making Apex Magazine continues to be challenging and interesting. I feel fortunate being able to help create something that people enjoy.

Promise me that you’ll let me know when it’s time to hang up the red pen. I don’t want to run 15 years past my prime like The Simpsons. Just kidding, I could never walk away from all that money, either.

The Hugo Awards were held at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki last month. I’m proud to share that Ursula Vernon’s issue 80 novelette The Tomato Thief won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette! On behalf of everyone at Apex Magazine, we congratulate Ursula on picking up the big rocket.

I love her Grandmother Harken and the world she inhabits. Ursula, we need more stories in that universe! And a novel! Call me and we’ll talk.

For issue 100, we’ve lined up a large block of entertainment for you. The issue a quintet of talented women writers of fiction including a powerful and action-packed novelette by Kameron Hurley (Tumbledown). Andrea Tang goes hunting for The Man in the Crimson Coat. One of the best and underappreciated short fiction authors working is Lucy A. Snyder, and we are pleased to present her While the Black Stars Burn. Carrie Laben’s Bad Penny is a timely story about the lingering ghosts of America’s past. Rounding out this month’s fiction is rising star Kristi DeMeester’s The Lightning Bird from her debut collection Everything That’s Underneath (Apex Book Company).

Our feature interviews this month are of author Kameron Hurley and cover artist Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor.

Alien and Aliens (and to a certain misguided degree Alien³) played a large role in shaping my fiction and entertainment choices as a young man. The films’ influence can definitely be seen in the content of this publication. So I hope you’re as intrigued by "In Space, Can Anyone Hear Your Philosophy?: A Look at Alien and Philosophy with Editor/Contributor Jeffrey Ewing" by M.B. Sutherland as I was.

Finally, we can’t do a 100th issue without a form of self-gratification and acknowledgement. I asked a large group of those in the Apex Magazine family (contributors, editors current and past, our longtime readers) to say a few words about the zine. The only direction given them was not to be mean to anyone. I also provide a brief history of the zine that some might find enlightening.

Thank you for reading. 100 down. Onward to 200!

Editor-in-chief,

Jason Sizemore

Tumbledown by Kameron Hurley

8,700 words

It was too early in the season for a plague, but plague never waited on the turn of the seasons. Sarnai knew that as well as anyone.

From inside the tram, Sarnai saw wan winter light trickle across the northern horizon like whisky from the bottom of a glass. A flat-faced white fox made its way across the tundra, shaking its mane of feathers. It left a trail of purplish blood across the snow; its rear paw had been mangled by some predator, or perhaps a trap left out by an illegal feather dealer. There were larger predators out there, ones suited to hunting down that little fox with ease. The fox raised its head and met her look, then began digging into a pillowy hillside, shaking its mane of feathers once again. Only the very smartest and very persistent survived out here. 

As the tram picked up speed, the landscape bled into a single smear of flickering white, and Sarnai had to look away to keep her headache at bay. Bright light triggered migraines. She passed her hand over the tram window, but the dimmer was broken. No relief, there.

The tram slowed as they reached the research station.

While the others got their things and stood, Sarnai waited impatiently for the full stop. The flickering sign outside the station came into focus as the train came to a halt. The sign swung in the heavy wind, buffeted by a slurry of snow made from frozen water and mercury. Sarnai clipped her respirator back on, sealing her environmental suit once again, and used the bar next to the window to heft herself up onto her blocky mechanical leg braces. She didn’t like the braces. They were for the comfort of others. She could stand upright and shift the weight of her torso to control the movement of her legs. It made it easier for people to forget her difference. In a little settlement like this, other people’s discomfort could be deadly. So she wore the fucking braces, though they were a lie. She preferred being in her chair at home where she could haul herself around using her upper body. She took great pride in her massive shoulders and forearms.

Sarnai slung her emergency bag over her shoulder and picked up her cane. She didn’t need the cane to walk, but it was good to have in case of a stumble. It had saved her from a lot of embarrassing falls. She followed the others onto the platform, clacking onto the platform in her custom ice shoes, which left little pinpricks in the snow and ice as she walked.

Sarnai went through the airlock, which cycled through with a hissing whoosh. Little particles of frozen mercury were pulled away from the skin of her environmental suit by powerful magnets, re-distributing the mercury into containers beneath the station that would later be traded off-world. The doors in front of her opened. Sarnai peeled off her respirator and slung it over her shoulder. She pushed back her hood and entered the station.

Sarnai made her way straight ahead to the moving escalator that went up to the health labs. The research station was the only one on Narantu, and it clung stubbornly to the outer ring of settlements huddled around the equator. The population had swung rapidly over the last seventy years, brought low by plague, famine, and extreme weather that threatened settlements that crept too far north or south from the core. Trams connected a few of the population centers to the community-owned resource centers, mining facilities, and public harvesting hubs, but most travel was still done by sled. The thick air, paired with strong gravity and a preponderance of dust made of volcanic grit, and toxic mercury, made flight cost prohibitive. Every form of travel was dangerous, here, but flight most of all.  

Enkh, Sarnai’s boss, waited for her at the top of the escalator. Enkh’s doughy face was pained. Enkh was over fifty, one of the first generation to grow up on Narantu, and she wore her thick black hair braided back into double bows on the side of her head. She closed her fist when she saw Sarnai, extinguishing the pop-up display projected from the tattoo on her forearm.

I heard, Sarnai said as Enkh opened her mouth. Sarnai would not have come into work this early unless she had heard.

It was Erdene, Enkh said. I don’t know what she encountered out there, but she had taken off half her suit. Came in sunburned and emaciated, half an arm gone, crawling with the spinal plague. We’re meeting in the conference room to discuss how to get the antibodies sent out to Batbayer. It’s a full-blown epidemic.

Batbayer is three thousand kilometers out, Sarnai said. Making a run like that this time of year is impossible.

Let’s see what Khulan has to say, Enkh said.

Enkh and Sarnai made their way to the conference room where the rest of the team was already gathered. The head of the research facility, Otryad, was a lean, birdish woman with a long nose that nearly touched her upper lip. Batu and Temujin, the heads of the health and disease control labs, respectively, sat with heads bowed over their pop-up displays. Old Khulan was muttering to himself in front of the projection wall. 

Sarnai limped over to him and pressed the patterned sequence on his display to synch up the dual projected screen and his personal one. A grin split Khulan’s bearded face, and he thumped her arm firmly. She was glad for the grip of her shoes. Sarnai sat in the seat closest to the projector and caught her breath as the others settled down.

You’ve all heard about Batbayer, Otryad said.

We’ve lost settlements to tumbledown before, Sarnai said, using the colloquial name for the spinal plague. She wanted to be the first to say it out loud because everyone was pointedly not looking at her. Those in Batbayer chose to live on the edge, just as my own parents did. That far out, they know the risks.

We owe it to Erdene to listen to what she has to say, Khulan said. He fiddled with his display and projected a frozen recording onto the screen.   

Sarnai did not want to watch any recording from out there. She had already lived that. Sarnai turned to the screen to avoid others’ stares but lowered her gaze so all she saw was the bottom of the image and Erdene’s red-striped environmental suit. Unfortunately, Sarnai did not cover her ears.

Erdene was coughing, a hack-hack-hoop sound that made Sarnai shiver. The hissing of the sled over the snow and the jingle of the dogs’ tack sounded dully behind her.

Confirmed the first incidence of spinafalia, Erdene rasped. Sarnai watched the creases in Erdene’s environmental suit rise and fall and ripple like some fabulous mountain range. Zero patient was a trader. Says he came through Tetseggai twenty days ago, and Asharaanti thirty days before that. They may already be gone. No time to get lorphor there. All falling down. She paused to hack again.

Sarnai’s gaze dipped below the projection into the dark crease between the wall and the floor. There had been no lorphor, no