Last Dragon

The form draws on the epistolary novel, with Zhan addressing recollections to a former lover, Esumi. However, it periodically shifts to narrate events from other characters’ points of view. Adding a layer to the narrative complexity, the missives follow a train of thought rather than strict chronological order. The book bounces around the timeline, but each individual transition pivots on an element like a sound or visual image that makes the shift from one time to another seem logical, not jarring. Writers looking for an example of non-sequential storytelling that still maintains a natural progression of the narrative and might do well to study how McDermott pulls it off well in Last Dragon.

Part of the pleasure of reading this comes in following the threads of the story and watching the fabric of the story emerge on one’s mental loom as McDermott weaves everything together until the ends are all tied up. Many motifs and images repeat throughout, lending coherence amid the non-sequential storytelling. Reading the narrative voice felt like watching a dream, where everything seems to make perfect sense in the moment but defies explanation after the fact. It’s a book that begs to be read more than once since the significance of some of the threads in the web easily go unnoticed at first. Like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, piecing together the story from the pieces as they are initially laid out is even more enjoyable when you have an idea what the picture will be, but there is a certain adventure to working out the picture as you go.

Recommendation

Last Dragon would be an ideal book for readers who like a more experimental, nonlinear form to their fiction. Last Dragon requires active engagement from its readers. Very firmly in the fantasy realm, it may also provide an entry point for avid readers of literary or epic fantasy.

Preorder Disintegration Visions by J.M. McDermott

Janet Harriett is a freelance editor who hunts typos for sport and shapes prose for pay. As a writer, she leans toward pulp and science fiction stories. She lives in Ohio with her husband, three cats and six coffeemakers. Find her online at www.janetharriett.com.

How wonderful to meet you! Please let me introduce myself. My name is Katerina Stoykova-Klemer and I spend my time writing poetry, publishing books and hosting a literary radio show. I love doing all three and each enhances my life in a very unique way.

1. Writing

I live in Kentucky and I am an immigrant. I was born and raised in Bulgaria. I remember in college I had a teacher who was born in India. He always referred to India as “the place I come from.” He did not want to say “home” or “my country.” I understand that. After living in the USA for 42.5% of my life, I am reluctant to label any place home. Is it cliché to say that home is within oneself?

I often write about displacement, sometimes in such a way that it’s hard to tell it’s an “immigration” poem. Here is one from my upcoming poetry book, The Porcupine of Mind.

Mermaid in the Cornfield

We found
a mermaid in the cornfield.
Covered in mud.
Tired from dragging around her tail.
She was eating corn,
holding an ear with one hand.
With the other, she was wiping off her tears.
That’s how we found her.
We followed the whimpering sounds;
we thought it was a baby animal.

Instead,
it was a mermaid in the cornfield.
Her hair, blue as the ocean,
was tangled with weeds,
dusty and dirty,
with a fish skeleton-comb to hold it in place
above her seaweed eyes.

She had bite marks of animals,
fat lip and scabs.
That’s how we found her.
From far away,
she looked like a dolphin
caught in a blue net.

Instead,
it was a mermaid in the cornfield.
Ants were crowding her tail,
trying to pull a few scales
to take home for winter.
And mice were snarling,
and daring birds of prey were landing.

A few times
we asked her:
How can we help?
But she just waved her tail at us
to go away.

We did. But
it didn’t feel right
to leave her there like that,
so we returned
and carried her off
in the back of the truck
to our bathtub,
where we mixed sea salt
with cold water
and dropped in it a yellow rubber duck.

2. Publishing

I am the founder and Senior Editor of Accents Publishing – an independent press which focuses primarily on poetry. One of our latest titles is Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems. It contains 250 poems by 192 contributors. A fascinating fact about this book is that each poem contains only up to 50 words, including the title. Here are two examples:

Staci R. Schoenfeld

Miscellaneous Merchandise
(a found poem)

Two prom dresses.
One long.
One short.
Must see.

Thom Ward

What Do You Want When You Leave?

The dance of rain on dirt. Pears
in a glass bowl. Children on swings.
Three flowers, one for you, my shadow
and the guest who has yet to arrive.
The rusted wheelbarrow at the edge
of the woods. This and that and these.

3. Radio

I host Accents – a radio show for literature, art and culture on WRFL 88.1 FM Lexington, KY. It’s a weekly, hour-long show during which I interview writers. Typically we discuss writing, editing, publishing, new books, etc. Some guests who have been featured on Accents are Ursula K Le Guin, Charles Simic, Elizabeth Kostova and others. You can browse and listen to past shows here: http://katerinaklemer.com/radio.html#archive

I hope you found some of this information interesting and relevant to your lives. It’s been an honor to write to you today. I wish for you best of luck with reading, writing and all your creative projects.

Yours
Katerina

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer’s first poetry book, the bilingual The Air around the Butterfly (Fakel Express, 2009), won the 2010 Pencho’s Oak award, given annually to recognize literary contribution to contemporary Bulgarian culture. She is the author of The Most (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Indivisible Number (Fakel Express, 2011, Bulgarian only). Katerina is the editor of Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems (Accents Publishing, 2011). In 2007, Katerina founded Poezia, weekly poetry and prose workshops open to the public and based in Lexington, Kentucky. She is the creator and host of Accents, a radio show for literature, art and culture on WRFL, 88.1 FM, Lexington. In January 2010, Katerina launched Accents Publishing, an independent press for brilliant voices. Born and raised in Bulgaria, Katerina writes, thinks and dreams in two languages and believes wherever she happens to be is her home. Her latest book, The Porcupine of Mind is forthcoming by Broadstone Books in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Photos by Amber Clark

Once upon a time, I wandered through a graveyard in the Pacific Northwest and I came up on a gravestone with a symbol I did not recognize. Determined to know what it meant, I researched it and discovered a wealth of history to be had. Now, with photographer Amber Clark at my side, I share my gravestone stories with you.

When I came across the five pointed star with the initials F. A. T. A. L. on them, I knew I had to look up the symbol. It was just too interesting not to.

Order of the Eastern Star

The five pointed star is the symbol for the Order of the Eastern Star. This is a fraternal organization linked to the Freemasons. Created in 1850 by Grand Master Rob Morris, men and women may join as long as the men are Master Masons and the women have a specific relationships with Masons. Originally, it was only daughter, widow, wife, sister, or mother of a master Mason. Now other relatives are allowed to join. The first General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star was founded in 1876. 

For the most part, the Order of the Eastern Star is a charitable organization dedicated to the support of local theistic communities.

F. A. T. A. L.

What does F.A.T.A.L. stand for and where does it come from?

It is the motto of the Order and stands for “Fairest Among Thousands, Altogether Lovely.”

This comes from the initiation ceremony during the Degree of Electra or Fifth Degree. The fifth degree represents the fifth point of the five pointed star. The first is the Degree of Adah. The second is the Degree of Ruth. The third is the Degree of Esther. The forth is the Degree of Martha. Each one of these has a different meaning.

FATAL has become a password amongst the members of the Order as a warning against divulging the Order’s secrets. The motto itself is an offshoot from a phase in the Song of Solomon. In Song of Solomon the man in Chapter Five was called “chiefest among ten thousand” and “altogether lovely.” He represented Christ. Ancient Christians used this phrase to express their devotion to the savior.

The Five Pointed Star

The five pointed star of the Order has been controversial since its inception. The official signet of the Order of the Eastern Star has the point (or white ray) of the star facing downwardtowards the manger. However, many see the downward point star as a pagan symbol or worshiping the devil. Conspiracy theories continue to spread about Order and the Freemasons as evil men duping good Christian women into “bowing knee to vile gods.”

This is why some of the gravestones have the symbol of the star with the point upwards. Either by chapter choice or by uninformed or superstitious (but well meaning) relatives of the deceased.

I have barely touched on the wealth of information available about the Order of the Eastern Star and its motto. For those who would like to know more, there are a multitude of books out there about the Order, its works, and its practices along with numerous books from the Order’s detractors. 

With today being February 29, 2012, or Leap Day 2012, it’s a great day for me to once again discuss my love of time travel. After all, one of the better-known time travel television series in recent memory is Quantum Leap, all about a scientist who “leaps” into other people’s lives throughout history as he tries to make the world a better place. So in the spirit of Leap Day, I offer here three recommendations of time travel apps for the iPhone that I’ve downloaded and enjoyed.

Back in 2008, my wife and I first got iPhones. Sometime afterward, it occurred to me to investigate whether or not the Apple App Store sold anything that had to do with time travel (other than, say, free copies of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.) I don’t remember the exact date I first looked into time travel apps, but I do recall the first one I found.

That was the Flux Capacitor app based on the time-travel device from the Back to the Future series of films. The app manages to amuse me quite a lot. When the phone is held in portrait orientation, the app displays the actual flux capacitor and by pushing a button you can accelerate your phone (I guess?) to 88 miles per hour, at which point the flux capacitor flashes and you (theoretically, at least) travel in time. If you rotate the phone to landscape orientation, the app displays the time circuits car display with the Destination Time, Present Time, and Last Time Departed. On a whim, I set the Destination Time for my actual birthday years ago, and as of today, I still seem to be stuck back there.

After I played with the app for a while, I started to wonder if there were other apps out there related to time travel. It hit me to search on the key term Ziggy, which is the name of the computer that coordinates Project Quantum Leap in the TV show. The first time I did that search, I found only one app, the Ziggy Lights On app.

This app doesn’t purport to send you traveling in time, but it is fun. It turns the iPhone into a simulation of the colorful handlink device used by Admiral Al Calavicci in the later episodes of the show. Al routinely would hit the handlink when it wasn’t working properly and it would produce a short, sad squawk. The app does something similar, but it’s also a game where you try to turn on the colorful blocky lights that make up the handlink. So if you either want to pretend to be talking to a time traveler or want to while away the hours as you wait for time travel to be invented, it’s a nice app to have.

But in the end, the ultimate gold standard app for time travel was one that I just discovered a few months ago, and I’ve already given copies of it to a bunch of friends. Programmer Ben Hallert, whose mind obviously aligns with mine on this issue, developed the Ziggy’s Time Traveler Emergency Reference app. This app is a database for the accidental time traveler. Let’s say you found yourself suddenly thrown back into the past. Would you have the knowledge of upcoming historical events to help you survive or thrive while waiting for a lift back to 2012? Well, if you had your iPhone with you, and this app installed, you would. If you buy this app, you will find a historical database of over 100,000 events. Enter the date on which you have arrived in the past, and Ziggy will pop out a list of the upcoming important events, so you can be prepared if your memory of history is faulty.

Even better, Hallert has included lists of things such as stock market crashes and Super Bowl winners, so you can make investments that you know will pan out in your future. He includes the best performing companies of the last few decades, so I now know that if I find myself tossed back to 1970, buying stock in a company called Keystone would be a good thing. If you get thrown back further than the 20^th century, the app includes information on how to perform first aid and make penicillin. Most important of all, the app advises you to buy a solar charger before you get thrust back in time, so you’ll be able to keep your iPhone charged and continue to access Ziggy’s database. As someone who has sometimes worried that I might find myself thrown back in time (or, rather, as someone with a keen interest in history), I am delighted to have this app installed on my phone. (And I’m not just saying that because my birth date is considered a significant event in its historical database.)

Each of these three apps is only 99 cents; even at thrice the price, they’d be a bargain. If you have an iPhone, get them now, before you find yourself trapped in primitive times and bemoaning that you don’t know when the next solar eclipse will be…

Michael A. Burstein, winner of the 1997 Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has earned ten Hugo nominations and four Nebula nominations for his short fiction, collected in I Remember the Future. Burstein lives with his wife Nomi and their twin daughters in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is an elected Town Meeting Member and Library Trustee. When not writing, he edits middle and high school Science textbooks. He has two degrees in Physics and attended the Clarion Workshop. More information on Burstein and his work can be found on his webpage,http://www.mabfan.com.

In this month’s nonfiction, Julia Rios introduces us to a new acronym, QUILTBAG, a more encompassing term for our expanded understanding of gender and sexuality in literature, and discusses incorporating convincing QUILTBAG characters into fiction. Jay Lake discusses his writing career, travel, and writerly productivity in this month’s interview.

I hope that you enjoy this issue of Apex.

Lynne M. Thomas

Editor-in-Chief

This past weekend was a nice one for me. I was the guest presenter at the annual Indiana Horror Writers retreat. Ostensibly, the topic was supposed to be rather mundane–what do editors want in a manuscript. With such a broad and… boring subject, I tried to give a little something beyond and talk about  the realities of getting published in today’s markets and what writers can do to help their chances. My nerves rattled me early on, but I think I ended strong. A big thanks to the IHW for having me. Check out my Facebook for photos!

The big Apex news was the announcement of the release date and cover art for The Apex Book of World SF 2 edited by Lavie Tidhar. We even got coverage on Wired.com. Apex is equally proud of the new collection of dark fantasy by acclaimed author of the weird J.M. McDermott titled Disintegration Visions. Preorders have been opened for both.

PREORDER RELEASES
* Preorder The Apex Book of World SF 2 and receive free domestic shipping (international customers receive an equivalent $3 discount). Domestic customers should use checkout code WORLDSF2USA while international customers should use checkout code WORLDSF2. We’re also offering the first volume of World SF for an additional $5 with preorders. Expected release date is early April.

Preorder The Apex Book of World SF 2 here

* Preorder Disintegration Visions and have your copy signed by the author! Expected release date is early March.

Preorder Disintegration Visions here

MISC. NEWS
I finished a slight redesign of our main page.

We’ve started a new weekly thing as a small way to give back to our fans and supporters. It’s called Free Fridays. Every Friday, Apex will post free content such as short fiction, chapters, and whatever else cool comes to mind. Bookmark this page and check back every Friday.

The upcoming issue of Apex Magazine has been set. We’ll have fiction from Richard Bowes, Mary Ness, and Jay Lake.

[Unfortunately, Alethea Kontis won’t be with us (though we will still be having our traditional "In Celebration of Alethea Kontis Opening Dinner"). However, Brian Keene will be joining us. So imagine him in that outfit.*]

Another year, another Mo*Con approaches: May 4th-6th (Cinco de Mo*Yo). I both love and dread this time of year. There is an excitement as Mo*Con is typically the opening to my convention season. It’s like my kickoff party. There is a dread as, well, with all the planning and detail work that goes into it, (and it’s strange how such a laid back con requires so much thought) my writing productivity drops to about nothing. But it’s totally worth it.

A lot of writers have regular (insert their name) cons, ranging from backyard bbq/parties to full borne conventions. There’s no easy way to describe Mo*Con. Some call it the Necon of the Midwest. Or compare it to a con suite convention, a convention room party for a whole weekend, except held in a church. Its aim has always been to be small and intimate, yet be like a family reunion.

Mo*Con has a two part vision. The first, inspired by many a late night at conventions, is to provide a forum for folks, namely my horror and fantasy writing colleagues, to get together and discuss some of the larger issues which affect our writing, our social conscience, and our spiritual lives. We can have discussions and disagree (the whole point is to disagree), yet listen to one another in a spirit of respect. The second is that too often the artist is underappreciated and we wanted an occasion to spoil a few. This year’s line up includes:

“Apex Publishing Presents … Mary Robinette Kowal“

Mary Sangiovanni

Nate Southard

Publisher Guest of Honor: John Edward Lawson

Artist Guest of Honor: Mike Altman

.

We’ll be debuting a few projects at this year’s Mo*Con, not the least of which are The Miseducation of the Writer, an anthology of essays by writers of color edited by myself, Chesya Burke, and John Edward Lawson.And a portion of the money raised at Mo*Con will be given to the Carl Brandon Society.Lastly, a strange thing has happened with Mo*Con. Besides the fact that the bulk of the convention involves us continually rolling out food and drinks to facilitate great conversations, it has its own metric about whether that year was a successful con. It’s probably the only convention where people measure it by how well they feel loved. You have to experience it to understand.

The other night, I was watching the new television series Alcatraz, and something started to bother me about it. Now, it’s not a bad show, “decent but flawed” might be a good way to put it. But it suffers from lazy writing sometimes, and the episode the other night made that quite clear.

Twice in the same episode, the main character, a police officer, had a clear chance to shoot the violent assailant and end a string of bombings. Both times, it was clear that the bomber was happy to kill anyone in his path, in fact the first time it came up he threw a mine at the cop. A cop who had her gun trained on him while he turned around, armed the mine in his hand, slowly bent over, then rolled the mine a good thirty feet towards the officer.

She’d been standing there the whole time watching this, with a Glock pistol aimed at him the entire time, ready to fire. She watched some more, waited until the mine had rolled nearly to her, then dramatically dove out of the way just as it exploded.

She never fired a shot. This despite having enough time to empty her entire clip into him had she wanted to. She did, however, have time for a, “funny quip”.

It’s lazy writing, and it’s terribly annoying. Sure, the episode probably would end if she kills him before the first commercial break (which I think would be awesome to see happen, then onto a second story). But the writer should never have let that situation happen like that in the first place. Leading to that same spot could have happened many different ways, with the outcome the same (the bomber briefly gets away). Quite a lot more care could have been put into building something out of it. The writer shouldn’t just force a situation to feed the story, it needs to all flow together.

Let’s compare it to a different film, but similar situation. In the film The Bourne Ultimatum, the title character is chasing after a C.I.A. man that might have some answers. At the same time, an assassin is following the C.I.A. man, who has now jumped into a car to get away. The assassin tosses a bag at the front wheel of the man’s car, and starts off in the other direction. Bourne runs up just as the assassin is leaving, and Bourne might have killed him. Except, the assassin saw this situation coming, and the bag he tossed explodes, killing his victim and knocking Bourne down. The assassin gets away, and Bourne, though he failed, gets to go on another chase.

It works perfectly in the film because it leads up to it well, the tension seems ratcheted up, and nothing seems out of place. Bourne doesn’t have enough time to react, and barely gets a chance to even see the bag before it blows up. He’s failed, and worse for him he’s now knocked out. The plot, and the ensuing action sequences, move forward in a sensible way.

In Alcatraz, however, I was pulled completely out of the scene (and show). It makes no sense that she wouldn’t have tried to stop him, especially since he had just blown up a park and killed a bunch of people. She had plenty of time, and the only reason she didn’t was that the plot would have ended there. The writers painted themselves into a corner that they couldn’t get out of, and the only way out was to do something illogical.

Speaking of “painting”, this naturally brings up artists. Artists are not immune to doing the same thing, creating illogical actions to make something “cool”. I’ve seen quite a few covers where a character is doing something that makes no sense, and even interior art where the angles don’t work in the slightest bit.

Creating drama is great in the scene, but sometimes you’ll see a piece of art where the artist didn’t really think it through. Case in point, the women of swords and sorcery. Many covers of women in a fantasy image show them dressed in the tiniest of bikinis, showing more skin than Skinemax (as if I would–AHEM–know anything about that).

These women, painted to look perfect in every possible way and posed in the sexiest way imaginable, then have to fight giant monsters. Usually they are fighting in a swamp, or some horrific landscape, often even in the snow. The monsters are gooey, terrible things, a thousand times larger than the wee girl in the bikini. She’s still brandishing her sword as sexily as possible, though.

It’s like the bomber thing again, just with a monster.

It’s completely illogical that she’s dressed like that, and that she’d be silly enough to stand there and pose for the camera. It’s a wet dream fantasy for men, on the cover of a book that (I hope) the author would want the reader to take more seriously.

But, as with The Bourne Example Above™, there are ways to remake that image so that it really is exciting, and makes me want to pick up the book. Say, the woman is in full armor, feminine but still practical. Our angle shows us that she has a plan, be it magical or practical, but she’s obviously already been fighting. Her pose is tough and ready for action, and the monster is coming in.

I’d buy that book in no time flat.

As a creator, think to yourself next time about how a situation looks, and how it could be better. It should make sense, and be part of the scene or story, not just in there for looks. Lazy writing and lazy art just keep people away from your creation, and that’s the last thing you want.