Previous | Next What a beautiful, tragic human tale Nadia Bongo tells! "Born a Ghost" follows a small ghost girl's life from birth until her twelfth year. This story is a kind of ontology of the ghostly life across this period, a magical tale that hides reality under a thin layer of fiction. It's not... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #126 – Nothing of Value by Aimee Ogden
In "Nothing of Value," Aimee Ogden renders a future in which teleportation throughout the Solar System has become commonplace. What are the ethical and moral implications of what is called "transit" and involves the translation of information across vast amounts of space, information rearranged in just the way it was sent out in the first... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #125 – Dandelions by Martin Cahill
Previous | Next What happens when strangers from the stars come and their physiology interplays with ours in so unique a way as to invite nothing but murder. Martin Cahill's "Dandelions" is a flash piece that offers a refreshing reimagining of the alien invasion. Never mind that was exactly what they wanted to happen, what... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #122 – Waffles Are Only Goodbye for Now by Ryan Cole
Previous | Next Ryan Cole tells a heartfelt and intimate short story about Bertha, a refrigeration unit that puts a whole new layer of meaning to the notion of "smart appliances". Suffering from a case of PTSD after losing her family--and especially a child--Bertha bonds with a young survivor of the apocalyptic war, developing a... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #121 – The Last Gamemaster in the World by Angela Liu
The Last Gamemaster in the World by Angela Liu examines the mother-child dynamic in a beautiful, fresh way through the lens of games at the end of the world - find out this and more in my short examination of the short story.
The Short Story Reader #120 – The World’s Wife by Ng Yi-Sheng
Previous | Next Here's one of the most creative pieces of flash fiction I've read in recent memory, the story of a wife whose demand to have her husband's body recovered from the vacuum of space leads to a most unexpected development. Ng Yi-Sheng imagines this body developing its own atmosphere, becoming a planet in... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader # 119 – The Parts That Make Me by Louise Hughes
Previous | Next Here's an interesting piece of flash fiction, one that looks to the ties that bind the individual to who they are. Louise Hughes tells a familiar story in a new way from the perspective of an old freedom-fighter: We shouldn’t have existed as we did. Universal law decreed it, but in the... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #118 – The Ascent of the North Face by Ursula K. Le Guin
Previous | Next "The Ascent of the North Face" is a lesson in building up and sustaining an amusing (but not hilarious) joke. Written in the format of diary entries penned by an explorer, the story details a gruelling climb across cruel and frigid conditions; only, a climb to where? I can't tell you -... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #116 – Dr. Seattle Opens His Heart by Winston Turnage
Previous | Next Are you in the mood for some nightmare fuel? Excellent, because "Dr. Seattle Opens His Heart", a flash fiction piece by Winston Turnage, does fantastic work of presenting itself as such. A creature that might be God but is likely something far more sinister has appeared, and it wields power that makes... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #115 – Woman Embracing Woman, On Loan From Private Collection by Liv Strom
Previous | Next Whereas a previous Apex Magazine #141 piece drew the image of Medusa into a starkly feminist context, this piece by Liv Strom romanticises the innate tragedy to the mythological figure. Mirroring is a theme the text takes up with skill, though I don't want to tell you much about, save that the... Continue Reading →