The Book of Apex : Vol 4

25 February 2014


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Part of the Apex Blog Tour hosted by The Little Red Reviewer

The problem I always have with reviewing a collection of short stories is that it is, as described, a collection of different stories. What if you hate one and love another? And especially when it is a collection by different authors. Maybe you like one author’s style and not another’s? But that is also part of the brilliant aspect of reading a collection, you never know what you’re going to get.

The Book of Apex - vol. 4

The Book of Apex – vol. 4

My overall reaction to this collection is to say, oh yeah, I knew there was a reason I subscribed to Apex Magazine, some of those stories are really excellent. I’m not going to say all of them, because that wouldn’t be true. No collection could ever be all good could it?

And a few of these I’d read earlier, the zombie story in particular stuck in my mind, because it was a really interesting take on the zombie story.

Actually all in all most of the stories offered a pretty original take on the genre, whether that was fantasy, sci-fi or horror. I read my first Catheynne M. Valente in this collection, and at first I was bit meh about it but I really enjoyed her style of writing and in the end I got what the story was all about. For the most part the authors here were ones that I was not familiar with, one or two I’d read before, Alex Bledsoe & Marie Brennan stick out. I can heartily recommend both of their stories. And even with my “you’re never going to love all the stories in a collection” statement above I have to say that there wasn’t a single story here that I disliked. Some were intriguing, some atmospheric, but they all offered that twist that makes the story come alive and stick out in my mind.

I’ll really have to get my act together and read the magazine now, I still have my subscription after all.

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