Uncanny, Nightmare and Apex: Short Fiction Reviews by Paula Guran
Uncanny 9-10/24
Nightmare 10/24
Apex #146
I found three stories in Uncanny’s 60th issue to be standouts. “The 6% Squeeze” by Eddie Robson will appeal to anyone who has ever designed for a corporation with a strict “bible” or even anyone who has experienced such a corporation’s need for a scapegoat. Tananarive Due’s engaging “A Stranger Knocks” is set in 1926 Washington, DC, where newlyweds Judy and Alvin Jenkins are spending the summer house-sitting for a Howard University professor – until Frederic Cartier, a producer of “race pictures,” enters the scene. He hires Alvin to drive him to various east coast openings of his film in “the vein of Bram Stoker.” Judy, a fan of the uncanny, soon learns the supernatural is more than mere entertainment.
Novelette “¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror” by M.M. Olivas is a cinematic tour de force that introduces a new type of monster: the sangrona. It takes place sometime after 2030. The story is structured around a set of “rules” devised by three Hayward, California, teens to help them survive as sagronas and instruct a fourth girl they’ve discovered. No one knows how sangronas have evolved – perhaps mining for lithium in Mexico has released a strange gas or an ancient curse; maybe it a recessive genetic trait or microplastic pollution or synthetic food or a punishment from God – but these demi-ornitho-sapiens are clawed, fanged, and feathered harpy-like beings who need to devour meat.
The ever-excellent Gemma Files rewards the reader with “Little Horn” in Nightmare #145. Being a teenaged Antichrist is tough. So, Little Horn burns down her church, escapes a bunch of dirt-face fool worshippers, and allies with a sister Antichrist. Some hell breaks loose. Files mixes Book of Revelations-based lore in a story that appears to be a prologue to something more. Simon Gilbert’s “Perfect Water” is a quietly creepy tale of a young father’s stay at an old house on the Welsh coast. Isabel Cañas’s 870-word flash piece “NotRob” unnerves when a being torments a family.
The stories in Apex #146, to quote editor Lesley Conner, inadvertently turned out to share themes of “families and relationships and the things that we will do for the people who we love.” Still, there’s a considerable range. “Kizimbani” by Eugen Bacon & Clare E. Rhoden introduces Luna, a young woman stranded in an old-fashioned village after an explosion on her space bus. The place appears deserted but there is ample evidence of invisible presences. The dread grows as she relates her increasingly frightening experiences in a series of letters to her partner. “And Someone Has to Do It” by Koji A. Dae is centered on a family holiday tradition in which the mother’s role in providing for her family goes far beyond planning, gathering, and preparing. A shuddersome physical transformation is required.
A mother weaves dreams to relieve the pain of her daughter’s rare disease in “A Tapestry of Dreams” by Victor Forna. The ill woman’s father, however, cannot manage to obtain a magical healing root before she dies. Dead, but not yet gone to “the Spirit World,” the magic can still work and many interesting possibilities in an array of futures and family complexities are thoughtfully presented. A somewhat comedic consideration of responsibility is the theme of “What Good Daughters Do” by Tia Tashiro. A daughter constantly reminds herself “that being there for your mom is what good daughters do.” Her single mother sacrificed for her and now that mom is a zombie, she’s doing everything one can in hopes her parent will recover.
A man sacrifices everything – including his family’s support – to help offset Earth’s carbon footprint in “The Price of Moss” by Akis Linardos. Although he is relieving his family of the eventual burden of his old age, the sacrifice is supposedly for the world as a whole as well. An intriguing tale that questions sacrifice for the “greater good.”
Recommended Stories
“A Stranger Knocks”, Tananarive Due (Uncanny 9-10/24)
“Little Horn”, Gemma Files (Nightmare 10/24)
“¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror”, M.M. Olivas (Uncanny 9-10/24)
Paula Guran has edited more than 40 science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies and more than 50 novels and collections featuring the same. She’s reviewed and written articles for dozens of publications. She lives in Akron OH, near enough to her grandchildren to frequently be indulgent.
This review and more like it in the December 2024 issue of Locus.
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