Best Of Apex Magazine Volume One - Lesley Conner & Jason Sizemore

Whether wandering down endless stairwells, searching for answers in the desert, or reaching out to the stars, for more than six years Apex Magazine has entertained readers with stories that are strange, beautiful, shocking, and surreal. Now, for the first time, editors Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner are collecting the award winning and nominated stories, those chosen by readers as Story of the Year, and their own personal favorites into one anthology.

A Veil that wipes the experiences of war from soldiers’ memories. A witch who faces down both God and the devil to save a soul. A swaying dance that crosses the galaxy to transmit a message. A vampire caught in a web of politics and law by his responsibility to his family. Within this collection, you will find 21 stories that explore what it means to love, to regret, to be human.

With stories by Ursula Vernon, Ken Liu, Rachel Swirsky, Sarah Pinsker, Rich Larson, and more, Best of Apex Magazine: Volume 1 brings readers some of the best stories Apex Magazine has published so far, chosen by editors Lesley Conner and Jason Sizemore.

Where to start? All the stories are good, that's why they're in this compilation but some were quite simply outstanding. Of the 21 stories I loved most of them, never an easy feat in an anthology, and I think there was one that I didn't really warm to.This is one of the best anthologies I've read for a while, it was a pleasure to read and get lost in. It became a nightly treat to sit down, relax and read a couple of the stories before switching off for the night and I'm now working my way through the Apex volumes I had on my Kindle because if there are any half as good this collection? Well, they must be pretty special.

Favorites included both stories by Ursula Vernon, rapidly becoming a favorite author for me! Jackalope Wives was beautifully written and reminded me of Charles de Lint's Coyote stories in a way. Pocosin, her other story included, about a dying possum god and the fight for his soul by God, the Devil and Death was an interesting take on Death but thankfully still involved drinking whisky. 

Candy Girl by Chikodili Emelumadu is almost enough to put you off candy for life! It's easy to see why it was nominated for a Shirley Jackson award as I don't think I'll be able to look at a Mars Bar in the same way ever again. If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky broke my heart and The Performance Artist by Lettie Prell freaked me out even thinking about the possibilities that her story brought up about transferring consciousness.

Armless Maidens Of The American West by Genevieve Valentine was compelling in that awful way as you thought about the fact the researcher in the story knew of enough 'armless maidens' in one section of the country to be able to consider setting up a research project.

Other stories involved aliens, dolls, SETI, vampires, the afterlife, veterans and strange books that appear to converse with you and are all worth reading but my absolute favorite stories were Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale) by Ian Tregillis and L'espirit de l'escalier by Peter M Ball. Still Life was addictive reading about a clockmaker called Tink in a city called Nycthemeron and her developing fascination with Valentine, the consort of Queen Perjumbellatrix. Worth reading for the fantastical names alone Still Life tells the tale of time and love and how time literally flies for some but stands still for others. L'espirit de l'escalier was the heartbreaking tale of a grieving man, visiting the Endless Stairwell with the the ashes of his fiancee as they never got to visit whilst she was alive. This was my favorite overall I think but also scared the living daylights out of me as I've had a recurring dream about a bottomless staircase ever since I was tiny so it was weird to read about one after all this time.

If you're at all a fan of short stories then you definitely need to check this volume out. Lesley and Jason have put together a great collection of stories that kept me hooked all the way through. A special mention must also be made of the cover artist, Adrian Borda, whose “Life is a Dance in The Rain III” makes for an amazing cover and features mechanical items performing human actions. I'm off now to renew my subscription to Apex as I can't wait to read more fantastic short stories!

 

Best Of Apex Magazine - ed. Lesley Conner & Jason Sizemore

ISBN - 9781937009373

Publisher - Apex Book Company 

Release date - January 12 2016

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository

Many thanks to Lesley Conner and Apex Magazine for providing me with a review copy of Best Of Apex Magazine!

Book Haul #101, Or The One Where I Bought A Book

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly event hosted on Tynga's Reviews where we can share what new books we've picked up this past week be they bought, borrowed or downloaded. There are also lots of other 'book haul' memes out there for you to choose from!

The title says it all! After 42 days of not buying anything paper or electronic I handed over cash for a book. Not just any book though, it was my pre-order of Dearest which I'd actually completely forgotten about until I received a dispatch email... Never mind, back on the straight and narrow again. It's been 3 days since I bought a book and now I've bought one I keep seeing books I desperately want everywhere!

Bought

Blog Tour

For Review

Those Above

The Iron Ring

When My Heart Was Wicked

Top Ten Tuesday #79 - Books To Read For My Fairy Tale Challenge!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the fabulous gals cover at The Broke & The Bookish. This week's topic is -

A FREEBIE!!!

Therefore I have decided to do -

Retellings To Read For My Fairy Tale Challenge

And I expect everyone is now either rolling their eyes and/or thinking 'how predictable'!!! Well, I'm treating this week's TTT as an organizational post. In view of the fact we are almost through the first month of the year yet I still haven't read any fairy tale retellings yet this year and my goal for this challenge is 21 to 25 books (second highest level, I'd really like to go for the highest...) I'm getting into gear and also hoping that you may have suggestions for me that aren't on my list - especially adult retellings. I seem to have dozens of YA suggestions but not many adult that I haven't already read. I'm also hoping that a re-read of a couple of Juliet Marillier's books will boost that number! And of course, they all have to be books I own, or can borrow from the library...

Top Ten Tuesday #51 - Top Ten Books If You Like Grimm & Once Upon A Time!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely people at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten Books If You Like X television show/movie/comic/play etc.

So, as it's Fairy Tale Fortnight over on the Book Rat and A Backwards Story I thought I would choose books to read if you like Grimm and/or Once Upon A Time! Actually, I probably would have chosen them even if it wasn't FTF! Here's my idea of just a few of the authors who have written fairy tale retellings that you need to read :)

Sarah Pinborough

Marissa Meyer

Carolyn Turgeon

Kate Forsyth

Juliet Marillier

Kate Danley

Adam Gidwitz

Alethea Kontis

Robin McKinley

Anne Ursu

Book Haul #67

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly event hosted on Tynga's Reviews where we can share what new books we've picked up this past week be they bought, borrowed or downloaded. There are also lots of other 'book haul' memes out there for you to choose from!

Great week this week! I went to my first signing of the year on Thursday - the lovely Adam Christopher, and of course had to buy the two books he was launching even though I already have e-ARC's, plus a copy of his first novel which I previously borrowed from the library. It was also Pratchett time again and another two books in the new hardcover collectors editions were released this week. And somehow I managed to be completely oblivious that Juliet Marillier had released a book of her short stories, including the Sevenwaters novella 'Twixt Firelight and Water' and well, it would have been rude not to buy it :)

Bought

The Burning Dark | Hang Wire | Empire State

Hero | Prickle Moon | Pippi Longstocking

Guards! Guards! | Men At Arms

For Review

The Golden Apple | Feather Bound | The Wizard's Promise

Random Reads #7 - Enchanted

Random Reads is a monthly meme hosted by Sarah at I’m Loving Books.  This feature is to get us reading a random book within the month that is in our TBR stack.

Random Reads is a meme where we pick a random book from our shelf to read within the month. Feel free to do more than one per month, but since a lot of people have a lot of books to read each month, only one is “required” for the meme.

Want to join in on Random Reads?

It’s easy…

1. If you’re on Goodreads enable sorting to your to-read shelf (you should see numbers next to each book now).
2. Go to Random.org and type in the Min as 1 and the Max as how many ever books are on your to-read shelf.
3. Scroll down to the book matching the number Random.org picks.
4. Link up to your Random Reads post (below). If you choose more than one book per month, be sure to put a number by your name in the list so it doesn’t look like a duplicate.
5. Read and be merry!

This month Random chose number 465 which is

Enchanted - Alethea Kontis

Considering this is a fairy tale book I'm ashamed at how long this has been sat on the shelf unread *cough* a year today *cough* Reading Enchanted has added bonus points, it fits in with all three of my challenges! I will definitely get to this one as I'm excited to read it now. December's choice turned out to be a misfire as I can't find my copy of The False Prince anywhere, I know I have it but it's vanished! I'll add it back to the old TBR list and hopefully I'll find it some time soon!