For my last Magazine Minis of 2025, I’ll be taking a look at a handful of stories from the year’s final issues of Apex and Uncanny.

Apex

Apex almost always has something that catches my attention, but the editors enjoy body horror far too much for me to read it cover-to-cover. But they closed 2025 with a bang—I wanted to read everything in the Original Fiction section of Issue 151. Is it even still a Magazine Mini at this point? Well, I didn’t read all the flash, nonfiction, or reprints, so I’m saying yes. But it’s a big entry, so let’s get to it. 

The issue opens with a novelette, Liecraft by Anita Moskát, translated by Austin Wagner, taking place in an isolated city hanging on in the face of rampant decay and persistent environmental threats through the magical power of lies. The lead is forced to marry a dutiful dupe who makes himself trust even the most painful falsehoods for the good of the city. But her developing feelings threaten the master lie necessary for the most extensive projects. It’s an emotionally intense story made all the better by a speculative premise in which the most devastating moments are delivered indirectly, as crumbling walls—or lack thereof—alert the characters to the truth behind each revelation. 

Ghosts of Summer by Catharine Tavares is one that I initially dismissed for length reasons—I simply don’t care much for flash fiction—but I saw enough strong recommendations to put it back on my list. Ultimately, it’s a little short to build the kind of emotional connection that I felt reading “Liecraft,” but it makes excellent use of a split timeline to deliver an effective tragedy.

We Used to Wake to Song by Leah Ning is another short tale that I’d initially dismissed based on the first couple sentences. Looks like body horror, probably not for me. And there certainly is body horror here, but after the quality of the rest of the issue compelled me to take a second glance, I noticed the seeds of a family story that drew my interest in spite of the grotesquerie. It’s written from the perspective of a woman who had walked into the sea, becoming part of a flesh-and-bone reef that she hopes will be a step toward reversing the environmental devastation that has seen so many species disappear. But her reasons are much more complicated than just environmental stewardship, a swirling tangle she cannot deny when confronted by the daughter she had abandoned decades earlier. The environmental aspects are obviously fantastical, but they make a wonderful backdrop for the fraught family story intertwined with the ecological tale. 

Code Green by Rebecca Johnson is a sci-fi nursing story where the lead prepares a favorite patient for an experimental transplant in a world thrown into chaos by a virus that regenerates cells at deadly speeds. There’s a conspiracy plot here that might need a couple more pieces to fully come together, but the emotional connection between nurse and patient is wonderfully executed. 

Finally, The Horrible Conceit of Death and Night by J.A. Prentice is a clever, self-aware take on the Doomed Lovers trope, written from the perspective of the cat who ushers the dead into the afterlife. My book club did a session a couple years back on Telling a Better Story, and this exploration of how to escape the gravity of the traditional tropes would’ve fit wonderfully alongside “Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist” or “Baba Nowruz Gives His Wife a Flower Only Once a Year.” 

Uncanny

Uncanny Issue Sixty-Seven (here I’ll pause for those who regularly engage with the primary school set to remove their palms from their faces) features a stunning six stories from authors I’ve five-starred in the past. Of course, not every author I’ve loved in the past is an auto-read in the present, but two jumped out as stories I’d like to examine further. 

Thicker by Eleanna Castroianni would’ve fit well with the Apex set—it’s a family story about an annual pilgrimage to the drowned village in which so many friends and neighbors died. The young lead understands little about the true reasons behind the journey, and even when she does begin to hear stories, she can’t see how they fit together. It’s a slow, tense build to the ritual that both exposes the past and imposes demands on the present and future. 

Finally, the novelette The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker barely offers a hint of speculative elements until the conclusion, hiding them behind a period piece featuring a woman trying to break through the entrenched sexism in the world of illusionists. Pinsker never fails to write an engaging tale, and this is no exception, though while it’s a good read, it’s perhaps a bit more straightforward than some of her most-decorated work. 

December Favorites

• Liecraft by Anita Moskát, translated by Austin Wagner (novelette, Apex)
• We Used to Wake to Song by Leah Ning (short story, Apex)