"One of the most compelling aspects of speculative fiction is its ability to fulfill otherwise unattainable desires—whether one wants to create a magical society or travel through time, visit an alien civilization or remake history. It also satisfies more mundane reader desires, the ones it would not seem so hard to fulfill. To call a few of these out, I'll willingly step on this mine: the explosion of 'should.'"It should not be easier to find a zombie apocalypse than it is to find...

The city of Leiodare is unlike any other in the post-climate change United States. Within its boundaries, birds are outlawed and what was once a crater in Appalachia is now a tropical, glittering metropolis where Anna Armour is waiting. An artist by passion and a factory worker by trade, Anna is a woman of special gifts. She has chosen this beautiful, traumatized city to wait for the woman she’s lost, the one she believes can save her from her troubled past and uncertain future.Whe...

People are starving. Biogenetic adaptations are prevalent amongst the privileged—and the poor are being ground to a sharp and dangerous point. This is the near-future US where in the struggle for survival citizens are pushed to the breaking point as relationships start to fracture along the lines of class and race. These are stories of the leaders and the followers, the victims, heroes, and the everyday people caught in history's wake, chief among them Dr. Ezekiel Carter, a genius in his f...

From humor to horror, the speculative fiction in Broken Fevers has a gleaming edge. This new collection by award winner Tenea D. Johnson features 14 tales. Though many are dark, they pull one through the light, if only for a moment, to visit the next vista, a new world, or this one recast in an uncertain future. Whether it be the lengths a woman will go to for performance art or how best to communicate the Middle Passage's horrors to the privileged, darkness has room to breathe here and br...

Strange. Beautiful. Shocking. Surreal.APEX MAGAZINE is a digital dark science fiction and fantasy genre zine that features award-winning short fiction, essays, and interviews. Established in 2009, our fiction has won several Hugo and Nebula Awards.Issue 125 contains the following:EDITORIALEditorial by Jason SizemoreWords from the Honorary Special Editor by Jeffery ReynoldsORIGINAL FICTIONCOTTONMOUTH by Joelle WellingtonNe...