Issue 35: 3rd Quarter 2010

"Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you."
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4, no. 146

Editorial

News! Small Press Reviews
Abyss&Apex Now Does Book Reviews. Here's what you need to know.
by Wendy S. Delmater, Editor

Short Fiction

Chinvat Bridge
by Erin Cashier

     Static hisses while his finger holds the button down in angry silence before he speaks. "Go find her. Bring her back. If she doesn't come back alive, don't come back yourself."

     "Blow me, and blow the bridge."

     "Don't tempt me."

Fairyland
by Jennifer Greylyn

     The coffee gushes up and burns Cecily’s throat. It’s how she knows she’s back in her body. Lips clamped shut, she manages not to be sick and then notices the patches. They’ve turned red and are sending a pulse through her skin that is in time with a high-pitched alarm echoing in her ears. The house system is trying to warn her of something.

Invention
by Jamie Mason

FROM:	Betsy Campbell	grandma@campbellconstruction.com
TO:	Bill Campbell	bill@campbellconstruction.com
DATE:	26 October 2077 21:01:52 hrs
SUBJ:	hello

     The robot guarding the office trailer poked his head in to ask if I needed anything. I have my lunch bag and my heart medication and you taught me how to use e-mail, Willy, so I said no, I didn't need anything just now thank you. Except to be let go. But of course he's not going to do that.

Ice Moon Tale
by Eilis O'Neal

     Was it so bad, she wondered, to want to be a storyteller instead of just a no moon daughter? To want to be the one to keep the tales of Lalm, of the People? There were so many no moon children, it seemed, when compared to the ice moon children. Hardly special at all. And she could feel the stories sometimes, fluttering inside her, like captured birds wanting to be let free. Surely that meant that something.

Prelude to Battle
by Gwendolyn Clare

     Forget about launching a thousand ships; here was the face that sunk a thousand ships. With a smile like that, he found it hard to believe, but this was the woman who lost the War.

Flash Fiction

In The Bag
by Kit St. Germain

     The thieves, they set upon the tiny bag, and I could see they were struggling to get at a big wodge of gold that choked the opening. While they argued, trying to get the ingot out, snatching the bag one from each, my master muttered the old pes petrat sinistrus and turned each man's left leg to stone.

Poetry

Frank The Lamp
by Rich Ives

Kafka On Vacation
by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Leaving Evolution
by Shivani Sivagurunathan

Tiamat
by Joshua Gage

Colophon and Affiliations