The Inner Landscape
The abyss and the apex of human emotions is what Abyss & Apex Magazine is all about. In this edition you will find the laconic and laid-back humor of Maine residents, a far-too-hesitant and timid PhD researcher who learns to stand up for herself (boy, does she ever), the sympathy of a mage who takes pity on a cursed fae, and the resentful defiance of a military member who learns that the boss is not always wrong. It showcases the bitterness of someone whose genome was hacked, in utero, and the pain and eventual reconciliation of a man who finds out he’s been lied to all his life.
Our poetry editor introduces his offerings better than I ever could, but in the mix there is the emotional dance of both sides of an odd sort of colonialism. There is mourning for the loss of the heavens to light pollution. There is the self-loathing of the Wicked Witch of the West, the sense of adventure of new Martian colonists, the sharp pang of regret for a dead world, and the song of the craftsman as a creator. There’s even a prose poem about wishing to break the bounds of rationality and fly, and a shape poem that explores really getting past appearances and rejoicing in the minutiae of life.
The book reviews, as always, carry the theme of human emotions too. One book we look at brings a sense of wonder and explores what it means to feel human, another deals with grief, pain, and triumph over the odds, and a third carries the grand sweep of adventure in the best tradition of human endeavors.
You’ll get swept up in this edition. It has “all the feels.”
– Wendy S. Delmater
Photo Credit: Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of Arizona at Sunset, 1909. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Paul G. Allen Family Collection
