March’s edition of Apex Magazine is dedicated to long time Apex supporter and excellent genre member, Mary Robinette Kowal.
Kowal’s novelette, “The Bride Replete”, is the first of her pieces to appear (in two parts, so make sure to read it all). In this story a family of reptilian characters, from the point of view of the youngest Pimi, travels away from their homelands seeking prestige and marriage to establish a new branch of their family. The matriarch’s plans are quickly disturbed, first by the cultural differences between the two lands, then by a band of raiders. Pimi then finds herself a captive of a hostile tribe, forced to expand her croup unnaturally fast to serve as a larder and concubine for the Councilor who had her captured in the first place. “The Bride Replete” flirts with issues of societal views of body image and perceptions of nobility the same way it toys around with the definitions of science fiction and fantasy. Not one, nor the other, yet not exactly both, it’s not a typical Apex story, but it is alien and beautiful.
“Beyond the Garden Close” (also by Kowal) is definitely more science fiction, pitting a woman on a space ship in a trial for the right to bear a child. Lena has the added drive of wanting to win the right to breed for the sake of her lover, Phoebe. Making child rearing a game, and twisting the reproduction drive of people has its consequences though, if not on the ship’s occupants as a whole then on Lena as an individual.
Finally from Kowal is a pair of Apex reprints, which are indeed Apex reprints. “Scenting the Dark” from the one of the first issues of Apex Magazine is the title story from Kowal’s first collection. The tale holds up to multiple readings and remains one of the few, and best written, examples of disabled main character stories.
“Horizontal Rain” first appeared on one of the older print versions of Apex. Not a science fiction tale at all, but a modern fantasy one, it centers on a building site in Iceland besieged by creatures of legend.
In many ways this issue of Apex is softened by Kowal’s style, though it’s still veined with the dark.
On the non-Kowal side of things, this issue also offers up two Apex poems; “Exobiology” by F.J. Bergmann, a musing tale of alien insects and their hive-religion; and “Interstellar” by Freeman Ng which is the most traditional, dark-edged Apex story in this bunch.
For readers that might shy away from Apex due to the darker nature of their tales, or who might prefer fantasy to science fiction, this is a stand out issue that might be more to your liking.
