Apex Digest #10

This issue of Apex Digest is slimmer than others, and is lacking some of the beautiful artwork normally found within. But it’s not lacking in good and unusual fiction.

 

First up is Bad Sushi by Cherie Priest. While not within the normal parameters of “science fiction” it is an amusing tale with an unusual hero, Baku, a veteran of World War II that can be summed up as “Cthulhu Sushi”.

 

Next up is Daydreams by Lavie Tidhar. Set in the same world as his previous story in Apex (The Gunslinger of Chelem, from issue #9) wherein dreams are real, solid things, Daydreams focuses less on dream logic and more on the real world implications of the phenomenon. Tidhar weaves a sort of circular dreaminess to his story which may not be agreeable with everyone. Rafael ends up facing a dreamer who can not only recraft human subjects but also might be a little closer to Rafael than her realizes.

 

Memories of the Knacker’s Yard by Ian Creasey goes very well with the previous Daydreams. In this story it’s not dreams that are real, but ghosts. And memories can be pulled from heads and traded or sold, which of course leads to sculpting memories for higher value and poaching. It also raises a question, if cops could buy the memories of the killer would it turn them into killers themselves? This goes very nicely with the second installment of CAIN XP11 further in the issue.

 

Pigs and Feaches by Patrice E. Sarath is next up and it picks up the theme of memories where the previous story left off. In this story “Fast A” is a super speed version of Alzheimer’s that is infectious as if viral. The question raised is whether the disease truly wipes the mind, or just traps it within the body.

 

With Temple:Incarnations I didn’t review each segment, only the whole. But with Apex Digest’s second serialized novella, CAIN XP11 I can’t resist. The first section (found in Apex Digest #9) asked questions of both nature vs. nurture and science can, but should it? This segment continues the nature vs. nurture debate as Becker, armed with files and a clone of Jeffery Dahmer, chases down clones of other famous killers created for an experiment trying to isolate the killer gene. But the scientist in charge liberated the young killers (in the first part) and set them free to play in the world, also revealing there were more clones than the ones under careful scientific study.

 

But in addition to killer genes and carefully sculpted abuse on the part of the scientists part two also begins to ask “I’m genetically predisposed and nurtured to kill… what’s your excuse?”

 

This is one of the most thematically similar issues of Apex I’ve seen. It flows together like a fine meal, each side complimenting another.