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Apex Magazine: Issue 89
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.
Table of Contents
EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief – Jason Sizemore
FICTION
Damnatio Ad Beastias – Kristi DeMeester
Pagpag – Samuel Marzioli
Zayanim – Adam Roberts
NONFICTION
Interview with Author Kristi DeMeester – Andrea Johnson
Discovering Somnio: Interview with Travis Milloy – Betsy Phillips
Interview with Cover Artist Denis Corvus – Russell Dickerson
POETRY
American Dreams – Allie Nelson
Winged Beings of the Necropolis – Gary Every
Starfields – Andrew Gilstrap
Table of Contents
EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief – Jason Sizemore
FICTION
Damnatio Ad Beastias – Kristi DeMeester
Pagpag – Samuel Marzioli
Zayanim – Adam Roberts
NONFICTION
Interview with Author Kristi DeMeester – Andrea Johnson
Discovering Somnio: Interview with Travis Milloy – Betsy Phillips
Interview with Cover Artist Denis Corvus – Russell Dickerson
POETRY
American Dreams – Allie Nelson
Winged Beings of the Necropolis – Gary Every
Starfields – Andrew Gilstrap
ebook
Published October 4, 2016
About the author
Jason Sizemore
123 books112 followersI was born the son of an unemployed coal miner in a tiny Kentucky Appalachian villa named Big Creek (population 400). It’s an isolated area with beautiful rolling hills, thick forests, and country folk. I lived in Big Creek until I went to college, spending my weekends cruising the Winn Dixie parking lot of ladies, partying in my cousin’s run-down three room trailer, and being a member of the bad-ass Clay County High School Academic Team.
College was quite a shock for me. Girls! Minorities! Strip clubs! And it didn’t help that I attended Transylvania University, a fairly snotty (but excellent) private college in Lexington, KY (on scholarship… no way my family could have sent me otherwise). I graduated in the standard four years with a degree in Computer Science.
Since 1996, I’ve worked for evil corporations (IBM), dot com dreamers (eCampus.com), The Man (both city and state government), and for The Kids (KY Dept. of Education), and assholes (lots and lots of assholes).
In 2004, I decided my life was boring, that I no longer needed disposable income, and I needed to increase my stress levels. I started Apex Publications, a small press publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. At first it was just a small print zine, then a pro-level online zine, then books, and then ebooks.
I edit anthologies, mostly for Apex (because I’m a control freak). I occasionally do copy editing (when pressed) and have done plenty of acquisition editing over the years.
I also write. I don’t really write enough to leave a mark, but it seems to go well when I do put pen to paper.
Miscellaneous facts about me: left-handed, blue eyes, super geeky, hillbilly accent, near-sighted, and typically in a goofy mood.
Also, and most importantly, I’m not the drunkard all those Facebook photos makes me out to be. It just happens that cameras are always around when I… have libations. Honest!
College was quite a shock for me. Girls! Minorities! Strip clubs! And it didn’t help that I attended Transylvania University, a fairly snotty (but excellent) private college in Lexington, KY (on scholarship… no way my family could have sent me otherwise). I graduated in the standard four years with a degree in Computer Science.
Since 1996, I’ve worked for evil corporations (IBM), dot com dreamers (eCampus.com), The Man (both city and state government), and for The Kids (KY Dept. of Education), and assholes (lots and lots of assholes).
In 2004, I decided my life was boring, that I no longer needed disposable income, and I needed to increase my stress levels. I started Apex Publications, a small press publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. At first it was just a small print zine, then a pro-level online zine, then books, and then ebooks.
I edit anthologies, mostly for Apex (because I’m a control freak). I occasionally do copy editing (when pressed) and have done plenty of acquisition editing over the years.
I also write. I don’t really write enough to leave a mark, but it seems to go well when I do put pen to paper.
Miscellaneous facts about me: left-handed, blue eyes, super geeky, hillbilly accent, near-sighted, and typically in a goofy mood.
Also, and most importantly, I’m not the drunkard all those Facebook photos makes me out to be. It just happens that cameras are always around when I… have libations. Honest!
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 31, 2016
Currently this review is just for "Pagpag" by Samuel Marzioli, free online here at Apex Magazine. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
“Pagpag” is a zombie type of tale with a Filipino twist. Recently creatures called the aswang have been terrorizing the country, taking the form of people who have recently died and attacking the living ― most often the family of the dead person whose shape they’ve assumed ― and eating them, sucking their innard through their second tongue, a long, sharp proboscis. Aswang are particularly dangerous because they are lucid, have the memories of the person whose shape they’re in, and can pass for human … until they show their second tongue or attack you. Jay’s young wife Malaya was recently killed by an aswang that took the form of her father. Jay is part of the Night Watch, and patrols the countryside looking for aswang and killing them with his gulok, or machete. But Jay desperately wants to see Malaya one more time, so desperately that he embarks on a highly dangerous search for her aswang, if only so he can tell her goodbye.
In Filipino folklore, an aswang is a shapeshifting creature with characteristics of zombies, vampires, weres and/or ghouls. Pagpag is food that destitute people, like Jay and his family, scavenge by dumpster diving, often eating it even if it has gone bad. Jay told Malaya that it’s called pagpag (which in Tagalog means “to shake off the dust or dirt”) because “we scoop it up and shake the dust off. It’s not what we wanted, but it’s all we have. We come from dust, we live in dust and when we die we go to dust.” Malaya’s aswang is a type of pagpag for him: it’s not what he really wants, but it’s all he has. But what will come of his hunt for this remnant of his wife’s soul?
“Pagpag” is a zombie type of tale with a Filipino twist. Recently creatures called the aswang have been terrorizing the country, taking the form of people who have recently died and attacking the living ― most often the family of the dead person whose shape they’ve assumed ― and eating them, sucking their innard through their second tongue, a long, sharp proboscis. Aswang are particularly dangerous because they are lucid, have the memories of the person whose shape they’re in, and can pass for human … until they show their second tongue or attack you. Jay’s young wife Malaya was recently killed by an aswang that took the form of her father. Jay is part of the Night Watch, and patrols the countryside looking for aswang and killing them with his gulok, or machete. But Jay desperately wants to see Malaya one more time, so desperately that he embarks on a highly dangerous search for her aswang, if only so he can tell her goodbye.
In Filipino folklore, an aswang is a shapeshifting creature with characteristics of zombies, vampires, weres and/or ghouls. Pagpag is food that destitute people, like Jay and his family, scavenge by dumpster diving, often eating it even if it has gone bad. Jay told Malaya that it’s called pagpag (which in Tagalog means “to shake off the dust or dirt”) because “we scoop it up and shake the dust off. It’s not what we wanted, but it’s all we have. We come from dust, we live in dust and when we die we go to dust.” Malaya’s aswang is a type of pagpag for him: it’s not what he really wants, but it’s all he has. But what will come of his hunt for this remnant of his wife’s soul?
October 20, 2016
Spoilers below:
Goyim zombies. Filipino vampires. Drug-addicted werewolves. More please.
Goyim zombies. Filipino vampires. Drug-addicted werewolves. More please.
March 3, 2017
This is the Halloween issue, and dark fantasy isn't my favorite leaning, so adjust your view of my rating accordingly. I enjoyed the Roberts reprint "Zayanim" - a distinctive take on the ubiquitous zombie.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews