{"id":5614,"date":"2018-08-04T14:59:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T14:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5614"},"modified":"2018-08-04T15:00:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T15:00:33","slug":"apex-magazine-99-august-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5614","title":{"rendered":"Apex Magazine #99, August 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nGreg Hullender and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank<\/a>
\nCharles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews<\/a>
\nSam Tomaino, SFRevu<\/a>
\nStephanie Wexler, Tangent Online<\/a>
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Amy Sturgis;\u00a0Editor in Chief, Jason Sizemore<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nWelcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Rebecca Roanhorse \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nIf a Bird Can Be a Ghost<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Allison Mills \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nSkinny Charlie\u2019s Orbiting Teepee <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Pamela Rentz \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Trip<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Mari Kurisato \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-Fiction:
\nThe Fire <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 cover by Dana Tiger
\nWords from Guest Editor Amy H. Sturgis<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Amy H. Sturgis
\nInterview with Author Allison Mills<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Andrea Johnson
\nIndigenous Wonderworks and the Settler-Colonial Imaginary<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Daniel Heath Justice
\nInterview with Cover Artist Dana Tiger <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Russell Dickerson<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

I read this issue for a number of reasons: it is short, with four stories of roughly equal length totalling 20,000 words (lately I\u2019ve been busy reading the Hugo nominees as opposed to magazines); it was generously provided by the publisher as part of the Hugo Award finalists reading package;1<\/sup> it contains Rebecca Roanhorse\u2019s Hugo finalist short story; it was a special guest-edited \u201cIndigenous American Fantasists\u201d issue2<\/sup> (I\u2019ve always been curious about this sub-genre since reading Craig Strete\u2019s work3 <\/sup>in the mid-seventies); and, finally, I\u2019ve been meaning to look at this magazine for a while anyway\u2014recent issues have had some striking covers.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

The issue opens with Words from Guest Editor Amy H. Sturgis<\/em><\/strong>, an editorial that starts with a section about the editor\u2019s indigenous heritage:<\/p>\n

I was raised in Oklahoma, the state that once was U.S. \u201cIndian Territory,\u201d by parents who took seriously both our family heritage and the region\u2019s other many cultures. They exposed me not only to history but also to the present-day societies around me. I was fascinated by great figures of the past (and later wrote books about some of them), but I also had contemporary heroes.
\n[. . .]
\nIt took me by surprise, then, when I began to write and teach about Indigenous subjects as a scholar, to learn that many of my students and even some of my colleagues had locked Native America safely away in the museums of their minds as something both exotic and extinct.\u00a0 p. 4-5<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fiction gets off to a good start with two good stories. Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™<\/em><\/strong> by Rebecca Roanhorse concerns a man called a Jesse who works as a host in an Indian (the story\u2019s term) VR business that offers tourists various native experiences, and the setup has him providing a session for a client (who he eventually names White Wolf) that does not start well:<\/p>\n

You plant your feet in a wide welcoming stance and raise one hand. \u201cHow,\u201d you intone, as the man stops a few feet in front of you.
\nThe man flushes, a bright pinkish tone. You can\u2019t tell if he\u2019s nervous or embarrassed. Maybe both? But he raises his hand, palm forward, and says, \u201cHow,\u201d right back.
\n\u201cHave you come seeking wisdom, my son?\u201d you ask in your best broken English accent. \u201cCome. I will show you great wisdom.\u201d You sweep your arm across the prairie. \u201cWe look to brother wolf\u2014\u201d
\nThe man rolls his eyes.
\nWhat?
\nYou stutter to a pause. Are you doing something wrong? Is the accent no good? Too little? Too much?
\nYou visualize the requirements checklist. You are positive he chose wolf. Positive. So you press on. \u201cMy brother wolf,\u201d you say again, this time sounding much more Indian, you are sure.
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d the man says, interrupting. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t what I wanted. I\u2019ve made a mistake.\u201d
\n\u201cBut you picked it on the menu!\u201d In the confusion of the moment, you drop your accent. Is it too late to go back and say it right?
\nThe man\u2019s lips curl up in a grimace, like you have confirmed his worst suspicions. He shakes his head. \u201cI was looking for something more authentic.\u201d
\nSomething in your chest seizes up.
\n\u201cI can fix it,\u201d you say.
\n\u201cNo, it\u2019s alright. I\u2019ll find someone else.\u201d He turns to go.\u00a0 p. 16-17<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesse can\u2019t afford another black mark on his work record and attempts to recover the situation, but fails, and the man leaves.
\nAfter work Jesse goes to the local bar for a drink, and is surprised to meet White Wolf on his way out. They talk briefly (during which White Wolf claims that he is part Cherokee) and the man reappears in one of Jesse\u2019s VR sessions the next day. They later become drinking buddies and, in due course, Jesse thinks, friends.
\nThe inflection point in the story comes when Jesse misses not only work due to sickness but his regular Tuesday night meeting with White Wolf. When he is also unable to meet him the following Friday, Jesse sends his wife Theresa to let White Wolf know why he isn\u2019t there. She arrives back later that night, having obviously enjoyed herself (Jesse and Theresa have had their troubles in the past).
\nThe rest of the story (spoiler) charts Jesse\u2019s displacement by White Wolf in not only Theresa\u2019s affections but also with his friends and at work. The final scene has him jobless, at the end of a two-day drunk, and getting thrown out of his home. His trajectory is, of course, a metaphor for what happened (and may still be happening) to the indigenous American people. It is a sobering ending.
\nEqually as good, in my opinion, is If a Bird Can Be a Ghost<\/em><\/strong> by Allison Mills:<\/p>\n

Shelly\u2019s grandma teaches her about ghosts, how to carry them in her hair. If you carry your ghosts in your hair, then you can cut them off when you don\u2019t need them anymore. Otherwise, ghosts cling to your skin, dig their fingers in under your ribs and stay with you long, long after you want them gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story, as is probably obvious from above, is about Shelly and her grandmother. The latter is a ghost catcher who deals with ghosts who have not \u201cmoved on\u201d.
\nThe first half or so of the story consists of some interesting scene setting:<\/p>\n

Grandma did a cleansing for a nice white family to get rid of a mother-in-law once. They paid her three hundred dollars and gave her a lasagna for the freezer. Three hundred is a lot for a ghost. Most of Grandma\u2019s clients pay in knick-knacks and favours and food. Grandma doesn\u2019t charge much because if people know they have a ghost they might pay anything to get rid of them\u2014do anything.
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be responsible,\u201d Grandma tells Shelly. \u201cYou can\u2019t charge people through the nose to get rid of a ghost. We\u2019ve got to undercut the frauds so people come to us.\u201d
\nMom looks over from putting her hair up to go to work, her uniform shirt all nicely pressed. She points a finger at Grandma.
\n\u201cYou could charge a little more.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a nice lasagna,\u201d Grandma says.
\nMom shrugs because Grandma\u2019s right. It is a nice lasagna.\u00a0 p. 38<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later Shelley\u2019s mother dies, and the rest of the story has Shelly searching all over for\u00a0her ghost but (spoiler) it becomes clear that she has not remained behind and has already moved on. In the meantime, Shelley causes trouble for herself and several ghosts, and her grandmother eventually has to take her in hand.
\nThis is an absorbing piece about letting go of the dead and the past. If I was editing a \u2018Best Fantasy of the Year\u2019 anthology it would be on my short list.
\nThe story is followed by the informative Interview with Author Allison Mills<\/em><\/strong> by Andrea Johnson, and addresses why (spoiler) Shelly\u2019s mother did not stay behind:<\/p>\n

For me, Shelly\u2019s mom not sticking around is her way of taking care of Shelly. Short term, Shelly would be happier if her mom was there, but long term she might be hurt by it. Shelly\u2019s mom knows about ghosts and what their afterlives are like, and that\u2019s not what she wants for herself or her family. When we see Shelly\u2019s mom in the story, she\u2019s trying to keep Shelly from focusing too much on ghosts, and I think coming back to haunt her daughter would be counterintuitive to everything she wanted for her in life. Shelly\u2019s mom loves her, so she doesn\u2019t come back.\u00a0 p. 65-66<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The interview covers other matters, including an interesting section on how copyright applies to recordings of indigenous people:<\/p>\n

A common problem with recordings in archives, and why field recordings can seem like material archives should digitize and allow unrestricted access to, is that when a researcher records a traditional song, copyright of that recording belongs to the research, not the people singing it. Western law considers those songs public domain, and so the researcher, who owns the recording, could grant someone permission to take the recording, remix it, and release a single they make money off of without ever having to compensate or ask permission from the original performers. That happened with the 1992 house album Deep Forest<\/em>.\u00a0 p. 70<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Skinny Charlie\u2019s Orbiting Teepee <\/em><\/strong>by Pamela Rentz is about Charlie, who is one of the inhabitants on a spaceship containing emigrants from Earth. Unfortunately for Charlie the spaceship authorities seem to have turned life on the ship into a bureaucratic nightmare, and the story details his struggle to get a sign supplied for an upcoming cultural celebration. He eventually gets some help from Chief Rufus\u2019s right hand man Zane, and events develop\u00a0from there.
\nThis is lightweight, pleasant stuff, but doesn\u2019t entirely convince.
\nThe Trip<\/em><\/strong> by Mari Kurisato is another starship story (this time a generation starship one) featuring a virtual reality engineer\/technician called Corie. Unfortunately this one pretty much lost me at the start, when Corie\u2019s partner Amy is introduced:<\/p>\n

Why did Amy have cancer? Wasn\u2019t this the future, with flying cars and solar-powered space elevators, where everything had a nanocure pill? Where there were people living on moons and getting off Earth as fast as possible?\u00a0 p. 113<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage did not help me get past (a) the incongruity of her disease in this high-tech future or (b) that Amy would have been allowed to go on the ship with Corie in the first place. I could also have done without Corie having breakfast with a VR simulation of her dead mother every morning. (If you are the kind of reader that enjoys mawkish stories featuring heroines who feel sad about things, this will be right up your street). The VR sections also feel like material I\u2019ve read a million times before. That said, and if none of this puts you off, it moves along well enough, and the writer has a certain technical ability (i.e., they can tell a story, I just wish it hadn\u2019t been this one).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not entirely sure what the magazine\u2019s production team have done with The Fire<\/strong><\/em>, Dana Tiger\u2019s cover: normally the Apex<\/em> cover artwork goes all the way to the edges of the page,4<\/sup> but here there is\u00a0a white border around the left hand and top sides. A production snafu I suspect, but one you think they might have sorted for subsequent electronic sales.
\nAs for the artwork, it is an attractive and delicate piece which is unfortunately overpowered by the coloured text blocks on the left hand side. (And do we really need all that text on the cover anyway? There is a contents page.) Compare the actual cover below left and the quick edit I did below right:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

See what I mean?
\nThere is also an Interview with Cover Artist Dana Tiger <\/em><\/strong>by Russell Dickerson. Parts of it sound like something from\u00a0Pseuds Corner<\/em>:5<\/sup><\/p>\n

APEX MAGAZINE: \u201cThe Fire\u201d is made of clean lines and colors, with a nice flow of movement to entice the viewer into more complex interpretations. How do you balance the message you are offering to the viewer with the amount of imagery you paint, and have viewers interpreted it differently than you would have expected?
\n.<\/span>
\nDANA TIGER: The swirling lines and colors attempt to allow an entrance for the viewer to witness the undercurrent or source of power that my people, the Muscogee People, have danced for since the beginning of our time. The fire or \u201cTotkv\u201d is eternal and burns, is honored, fed and respected each year. My message of continuance is conveyed through a balance of delicate lines and soft colors implying movement and rhythm crucial to the flow necessary to maintain the dance. The woman\u2019s place is central and provides an undercurrent of strength, also eternal, in maintaining our ties to where we came from. A viewer is left to contemplate the historical, the mystical and the reality of a people.\u00a0 p. 136-137<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The remaining piece of non-fiction is Indigenous Wonderworks and the Settler-Colonial Imaginary<\/em><\/strong> by Daniel Heath Justice, a chapter from a forthcoming book which is rather strangled by its academic jargon:<\/p>\n

But even with those hard-won advances, deeply entrenched settler-colonial biases mean that our literatures already aren\u2019t \u201cliterary\u201d enough for many whitestream scholars and critics; adding the pathologization of fantasy and the scorn of genre snobbery on top of it is hardly something to be relished. Deficit remains the defining trope for Indigenous peoples in the settlercolonial imaginary. In this construction, \u201creal\u201d Indigenous peoples are always Other, always diminished, always the reduced shadow of our former greatness. So if the \u201creal\u201d is that which is passed away or gathering dust on the museum shelf, the \u201creal\u201d of Indigenous experience must therefore only be about deficit and loss.\u00a0 p. 77<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage above (and some of the material that follows it) essentially asserts that \u201crealistic\u201d fiction can only portray indigenous people as outsiders and losers: this is only the first questionable assertion in the essay.
\nHe goes on to suggest that fantasy can \u201c[open] up and [expand] the range of options for Indigenous characters (and readers)\u201d, before examining the genre\u2019s limitations:<\/p>\n

Yet we must acknowledge, too, that fantasy carries its own representational burdens that these writers are also working against. The savagism vs. civilization binary that has so deformed colonial understandings of Indigeneity is very much the world-building template in fantasy fiction. Indeed, if any literature can be said to be the safe haven of this intellectually and morally bankrupt concept, it is that nebulous textual archive known variously as genre, adventurer, or heroic fantasy, wherein largely white heroes possessed of courage and, sometimes, strange talents struggle to challenge evil and reaffirm the values of social conservatism and right order\u2014namely, might is right.
\nCivilization is bad or good; savages are noble or brutish; yet in either case, the conflict between a simplistic primitivism rooted\/trapped in the past and a contemporary progressivism of technological complexity is the superstructure undergirding the narrative content of most genre fantasy.
\n[. . .]
\n[Until the appearance of Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/em>] the genre had largely been dominated by the amoral and violently misogynistic and racialized phallic fantasies of Robert Howard, creator of the Hobbesian barbarian Conan and the Puritan witchhunter and soldier-of-fortune Solomon Kane (and whose own work was influenced in no small degree by H.P. Lovecraft\u2019s literary eugenics).
\nYet while the pipe-smoking Catholic don of Oxford University and the tough-talking Texas libertarian would seem, at first glance, to have little in common, their secondary worlds are in some ways complementary, for each presents a cosmos where heroic\/tragic acts of righteous conquest affirm the right of chosen men to lay claim to lands, resources, and peoples, a world where manly virtue is ordained and, for a time at least, rewarded (although in Tolkien\u2019s legendarium power accompanied by hubris always collapses in upon itself, with other power only occasionally surviving). There are more women in positions of authority in Tolkien\u2019s work, and far less sexual violence than in Howard\u2019s, and Tolkien was a widely tolerant man whose politics were far from those of Howard\u2019s racial fantasies, but together and in different but sometimes complementary ways the two men\u2019s work influenced the ideological template for the bulk of fantastic literature produced today.\u00a0 p. 80-81<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there we go . . . from Tolkien and Howard to \u201cthe bulk<\/em> of fantastic literature\u201d in one bound. A ridiculous assertion, but I\u2019d be interested to see the author produce an article on, say, the influence of Conan the Barbarian<\/em> on magical realism fiction, or on\u00a0Harry Potter<\/em>, etc. Or try. He goes on to provide his own \u201csolution\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cFantasy\u201d as it\u2019s commonly understood for us is dangerous, because it\u2019s so deeply entangled in settler-colonial logics of dead matter, monolithic reality, and rationalist supremacy. But we can offer our imaginations as something entirely different.
\nTerminology is just one issue\u2014imaginative orientation is the more significant challenge. And, I think, the one that promises a better way forward.
\nSo here I want to suggest a different term in place of fantasy, speculative fiction, or even imaginative literature, as all are burdened by dualistic presumptions of real and unreal that don\u2019t take seriously or leave legitimate space for other meaningful ways of experiencing this and worlds: through lived encounter and engagement, through ceremony and ritual, through dream. I suggest that \u201cwonderworks\u201d is a concept that offers Indigenous writers and storytellers something very different, and something more in keeping with our own epistemologies, politics, and relationships\u2014in English, admittedly, and limited by its generic applicability, but no less useful, I think, for that.\u00a0 p. 83-84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cReinventing\u201d and \u201cwheel\u201d are the words that come to mind.<\/p>\n

Overall, and with the exception of the article above, this is an interesting issue. However, I\u2019d note two things in passing. First, I have reservations about magazine special issues being used to showcase specific minorities (Whatever Destroys SF<\/em>, etc.). I can see why you might want to do this, but I\u2019d personally prefer to see these stories published alongside other \u2018mainstream\u2019 SF (like Craig Strete\u2019s stories were in the mid-70s If<\/em> and Galaxy<\/em>). Second, this issue has a female editor and four stories by women: if the issue had had a male editor and four stories by men there would have been much rending and tearing of garments. So it goes.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. As part of supporting membership of Worldcon you get the right to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards\u2014and also receive a good size digital package of material from the finalists to help you make up your mind (which, among other things, includes a lot of short fiction and even a novel or two).<\/p>\n

2. \u201cNative American\u201d seems to have changed to \u201cIndigenous American\u201d since I last looked. A couple of the writers here refer to \u201cIndians\u201d in their stories.<\/p>\n

3. The Craig Strete stories I saw mostly appeared in Galaxy<\/em> and If<\/em>. His ISFDB page is here<\/a>, SFE page is here<\/a> and Wikipedia page is here<\/a>. His first collection The Bleeding Man and Other Stories<\/em> is available on Kindle (UK<\/a>\/USA<\/a>).<\/p>\n

4. The covers for the recent issues of Apex<\/em> are\u00a0here<\/a>. The full size image for issue #105 is here<\/a>: that is what I mean by \u201cstriking\u201d.<\/p>\n

5. A description of Private Eye<\/em> magazine\u2019s Pseuds Corner<\/em> can be found here<\/a>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

This magazine is still being published! Magazines and subscriptions are available at the Apex website<\/a>, Weightless Books website<\/a>, and at Amazon UK<\/a>\/USA<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link Other reviews: Greg Hullender and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews Sam Tomaino, SFRevu Stephanie Wexler, Tangent Online Various, Goodreads _____________________ Editor, Amy Sturgis;\u00a0Editor in Chief, Jason Sizemore Fiction: Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ \u2022 short story by Rebecca Roanhorse \u2217\u2217\u2217+ If a Bird Can Be a Ghost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apex"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-1sy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5614"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5647,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614\/revisions\/5647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}