Apex Magazine, July 2009

_The renewal of Apex Magazine begins with “She Called Me Sweetie” by Glen Lewis Gillette. Here Gillette spins a wicked tale of clones and loneliness, all from a perfectly-toned child point of view. Readers can suspect what G might find when he jealously creeps into Mommy’s bedroom, but the story will hold their attention to the bitter end.

“…That Has Such People in It” by Jennifer Pelland can be summed up with the phrase “And the meek shall inherit the earth”. In this utopian appearing dystopia, humanity locks away its homeless and its violent in order to make things appear pretty for aliens visiting from a distant land. As the above-grounders flourish those below ground are healed, made sane and forced through starvation into behaving. While heavier-handed than many of Pelland’s stories it ends with an almost trademark finish which readers will find to be a bit of bitter justice.

Jeff Carlson’s “The Frozen Sky” is a halting tale of hard science fiction that pits Vonnie, a woman exploring for Earth, against Europa’s native insect/amphibian things. The tale is long and paralleled with what happened to cause Vonnie to be the Earth last survivor on the planet trying to face down the native species with her attempts at survival. This story will appeal to hard SF lovers, but it didn’t work as well for me, as I felt too distracted by other elements to get properly wrapped up in the dynamics of Vonnie’s fight for her life. This story is a classic example of a story that could be adventure with strong SF elements, or SF with some adventure elements with execution making all the difference between the two.