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    Apex Magazine Issue 98
    Apex Magazine Issue 98
    Apex Magazine Issue 98
    Ebook154 pages2 hours

    Apex Magazine Issue 98

    By Jason Sizemore

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    About this ebook

    Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month.

    EDITORIAL
    Words from the Editor-in-Chief — Jason Sizemore

    FICTION
    THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL— Eric Schwitzgebel
    L'appel du vide — Rich Larson
    — Kai Ashante Wilson
    Entertaining Demons (Excerpt) — Daniel I. Russell

    NONFICTION
    Interview with Author Eric Schwitzgebel — Andrea Johnson
    Mothers Who Consume — Kristi DeMeester
    Interview with Cover Artist Quentin Castel — Russell Dickerson
    Entities of Modern Evil — Daniel I. Russell

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApex Book Company
    Release dateJul 2, 2017
    ISBN9781370722549
    Apex Magazine Issue 98
    Author

    Jason Sizemore

    Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

    Read more from Jason Sizemore

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      Book preview

      Apex Magazine Issue 98 - Jason Sizemore

      APEX MAGAZINE

      ISSUE 98, JULY 2017

      Jason Sizemore, Editor-in-Chief

      Table of Contents

      EDITORIAL

      Words from the Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

      FICTION

      THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL—Eric Schwitzgebel

      L'appel du vide—Rich Larson

      <>—Kai Ashante Wilson

      Entertaining Demons (Novel Excerpt)—Daniel I. Russell

      NONFICTION

      Interview with Author Eric Schwitzgebel—Andrea Johnson

      Mothers Who Consume—Kristi DeMeester

      Entities of Modern Evil—Daniel I. Russell

      Interview with Cover Artist Quentin Castel—Russell Dickerson

      Words from the Editor-in-Chief

      Jason Sizemore

      There’s a certain horrifying cultural divide occurring in the United States. Progressive has become an invective, and some of the less pleasant aspects of societies have become emboldened. Perhaps, as science fiction readers and fans, we should have predicted this swing in national mood. For instance, our genre has had a rabid (and sad) puppy problem for a few years now.

      But it’s not all puppies, is it? Much like our genre predicted, free media has become corporate media. Greed is good, right Mr. Gecko? The current problems have been brewing for decades, as the United States became more comfortable as a world power and our leadership became infected with a corporate mentality. Make as much money as possible and damn the consequences.

      Perhaps there is hope. The same genre that predicted the rise of mega-corps taking over the government and media has turned its eye to fighting back. Some of the most popular recent books and stories have been fierce rebuttals to current policy and philosophies. Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy exposes the hollowness of bureaucratic and corporate systems in a backdrop of environmental concerns. M.R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts warns us that young people and Mother Nature have final say in the destiny of the human race. Stories like Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies by Bo Bolander and The Gentleman of Chaos by A. Merc Rustad are examples of a new generation of young, fierce writers who are not going to put up with your bullshit.

      Keep fighting for what’s right. For what’s good.

      Apex is standing with you.

      §

      While I’m not versed in philosophy (despite taking an Intro to Philosophy in college), I recognize that THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL by Eric Schwitzgebel is addressing weighty issues. It might be the weirdest piece of original fiction I’ve published, and certainly one of the most challenging (it also appears to address quantum mechanics and chaos theory). It’s also one of my favorites thus far. Rich Larson, who Garden Dozois called the most prolific short fiction writer in SF, makes another appearance in our pages with L’appel du vide. Our reprint this month is the novelette Légendaire by genre star Kai Ashante Wilson.

      We have a pair of essays this month: Mothers Who Consume by Kristi DeMeester and Entities of Modern Evil by Daniel I. Russell. Also, we’re pleased to present an excerpt from Daniel I. Russell’s upcoming novel Entertaining Demons (Apex Book Company). Russell is an Australian horror writer who deftly combines visceral horror with a shrewd worldview and a flash of humor. Entertaining Demons is scheduled to be released in early July.

      We have two interviews this month. Russell Dickerson interviews our cover artist Quentin Castel. And Andrea Johnson discusses THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL with the entertaining Eric Schwitzgebel.

      Don’t forget, Dr. Amy H. Sturgis will be guest-editing our August issue that will focus on the work of Indigenous and First Nations authors. We are extremely excited for the opportunity to work with Dr. Sturgis and to feature the work she has selected.

      I hope you enjoy issue 98!

      Jason Sizemore, Editor-in-Chief

      THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL

      Eric Schwitzgebel

      7,200 words

      In most respects, the universe (which some call the Library) is everywhere the same, and we at the summit are like the rest of you below. Like you, we dwell in a string of hexagonal library chambers connected by hallways that run infinitely east and west. Like you, we revere the indecipherable books that fill each chamber wall, ceiling to floor. Like you, we wander the connecting hallways, gathering fruits and lettuces from the north wall, then cast our rinds and waste down the consuming vine holes. Also like you, we sometimes turn our backs to the vines and gaze south through the indestructible glass toward sun and void, considering the nature of the world. Our finite lives, guided by our finite imaginations, repeat infinitely east, west, and down.

      But unlike you, we at the summit can watch the rabbits.

      The rabbits! Without knowing the rabbits, how could one hope to understand the world?

      #

      The rabbit had entered my family's chamber casually, on a crooked, sniffing path. We stood back, stopping mid-sentence to stare, as it hopped to a bookcase. My brother ran to inform the nearest chambers, then swiftly returned. Word spread, and soon most of the several hundred people who lived within a hundred chambers of us had come to witness the visitation -- Master Gardener Ferdinand in his long, green gown, Divine Chanter Guinart with his quirky smile. Why hadn't our neighbors above warned us that a rabbit was coming? Had they wished to watch the rabbit, and lift it, and stroke its fur, in selfish solitude?

      The rabbit grabbed the lowest bookshelf with its pink fingers and pulled itself up one shelf at a time to the fifth or sixth level; then it scooted sideways, sniffing along the chosen shelf, fingers gripping the shelf-rim, hind feet down upon the shelf below. Finding the book it sought, it hooked one finger under the book's spine and let it fall.

      The rabbit jumped lightly down, then nudged the book across the floor with its nose until it reached the reading chair in the middle of the room. It was of course taboo for anyone to touch the reading chair or the small round reading table, except under the guidance of a chanter. Chanter Guinart pressed his palms together and began a quiet song -- the same incomprehensible chant he had taught us all as children, a phonetic interpretation of the symbols in our sacred books.

      With its fingers the rabbit lifted the book to the seat of the chair, then paused to release some waste gas that smelled of fruit and lettuce. It hopped up onto the chair, lifted the book from chair to reading table, and hopped onto the table. Its off-white fur brightened as it crossed into the eternal sunbeam that angled through the small southern window. Beneath the chant, I heard the barefoot sound of people clustering behind me, their breath and quick whispers.

      The rabbit centered the book in the sunbeam. It opened the book and ran its nose sequentially along the pages. When it reached maybe the 80th page, it erased one letter with the pink side of its tongue, and then with the black side of its tongue it wrote a new letter in its place.

      Its task evidently completed, the rabbit nosed the book off the table, letting it fall roughly to the floor. The rabbit leaped down to chair then floor, then smoothed and licked and patiently cleaned the book with tongue and fingers and fur. Neighbors continued to gather, clogging room and doorways and both halls. When the book-grooming was complete, the rabbit raised the book one shelf at a time with nose and fingers, returning it to its proper spot. It leaped down again and hopped toward the east door. People stepped aside to give it a clear path. The rabbit exited our chamber and began to eat lettuces in the hall.

      With firm voice, my father broke the general hush: Children, you may gently pet the rabbit. One child at a time. He looked at me, but I no longer considered myself a child. I waited for the neighbor children to have their fill of touching. We lived about a hundred thousand levels from the summit, but even so impossibly near the top of our infinite world, one might reach old age only ever having seen a couple of dozen visitations. By the time the last child left, the rabbit had long since finished eating.

      The rabbit hopped toward where I sat, about twenty paces down the hall, near the spiral glass stairs. I intercepted it, lifting it up and gazing into its eyes. It gazed silently back, revealing no secrets.

      #

      Promising to return soon, I followed the rabbit downward. I brought no food and waved no sad goodbyes: I intended only a brief adventure free of my parents. As it happened, chance led to chance and I never returned. Or maybe it wasn't chance. The rabbit compelled me in a way that gardening and weaving and family did not.

      In the glare of the changeless sun, we descended the spiral glass stairs one level at a time. At each level, we crossed the twenty paces west to the nearest library chamber (never the forty paces east to the chamber at the hall's other end). The rabbit would sniff around the chamber a bit, usually doing nothing of seeming importance, sometimes cleaning or repairing a book with tongue and fingers. Then we would cross back to the stairs and descend to the next level.

      In some chambers my rabbit -- for so I had begun to think of it -- retrieved a book, always taking it to the central table by the same laborious procedure, and read it, changing one letter, usually in the interior. Sometimes it would change a few letters sequentially. In one chamber, it retrieved six adjacent books, one at a time, and rewrote all the pages from the middle of the first book to near the end of the sixth. How my rabbit knew what to do was not evident to me. It seemed only to be converting one string of random book-nonsense into another.

      Most chambers were empty of people. Some contained isolated families or hermits. Sometimes we passed through small centers of population. When we entered

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