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I'm not really into horror, but I kickstarted this anthology published by Apex, gotta support SFF short fiction presses :D
The standout story for me was "The Salt," by Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv, set at the end of the Dead Sea scrolls era (parallel with early Christianity). Agent XII is an operative from the Imperial Office of Incognita Natura; what others understand to be divine, world-shaking events, he interprets as punch-clock bureaucratic issues.
The standout story for me was "The Salt," by Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv, set at the end of the Dead Sea scrolls era (parallel with early Christianity). Agent XII is an operative from the Imperial Office of Incognita Natura; what others understand to be divine, world-shaking events, he interprets as punch-clock bureaucratic issues.
From there I made my way by land to Jerusalem, which sits atop the mountains and is a small, dismal sort of place, filled with rebellious Jews, dodgy expatriate Romans, dangerous Nabatean merchants, and lecherous Greeks--in short, a place much like any other in the Empire.
This forms the frame story to the recollections of "Joseph Son of Amram," who comes to the Qumran community as a spy for the religious authorities in the city.Various messiahs in different times, anywhere between the return of the Israelites to Canaan and the completion of the second temple, claimed to have prevented a calamity, to have argued with God and averted the end of the world.
Others claimed that the end of the world has already happened.
As weeks and months passed, the pattern became clearer. The world has already ended. Numerous times.
The world ended with Noah. The world ended with Lot.
Others claimed that the end of the world has already happened.
As weeks and months passed, the pattern became clearer. The world has already ended. Numerous times.
The world ended with Noah. The world ended with Lot.
I'd recently heard a discussion about how Abraham's argument to spare Sodom and Gomorrah is in some ways the quintessential story of the Jewish scriptures--arguing with God for the sake of righteousness--so it was neat to see that theme reframed through a horror lens.
There are a lot of recurring themes--the real horror is misogyny/racism/small towns dying out and being left behind by economic change; infodumping legends about the backstory. A couple stories avoided the "here is the legendary version of this town's past" trope by intercutting between a past and a present-day storyline, with parallel themes. I think this plot device can be effective, in that it does a lot in a relatively short format, but there's no need to italicize every single flashback when the flashbacks amount to half the story!
Shoutouts to "Map of the World" by Pan Morigan, which displays world maps with many of the location names penciled in, surrounded by evocative images from the stories; a violinist, a panther, a woman gagged with soil and vines in front of a narrow cave entrance, generations of ancestors who continue to watch over living generations.
Bingo: Published in 2025, Five+ Short Stories, Small Press...presumably Hidden Gem but it might still count as "new release" so probably not that one.
There are a lot of recurring themes--the real horror is misogyny/racism/small towns dying out and being left behind by economic change; infodumping legends about the backstory. A couple stories avoided the "here is the legendary version of this town's past" trope by intercutting between a past and a present-day storyline, with parallel themes. I think this plot device can be effective, in that it does a lot in a relatively short format, but there's no need to italicize every single flashback when the flashbacks amount to half the story!
Shoutouts to "Map of the World" by Pan Morigan, which displays world maps with many of the location names penciled in, surrounded by evocative images from the stories; a violinist, a panther, a woman gagged with soil and vines in front of a narrow cave entrance, generations of ancestors who continue to watch over living generations.
Bingo: Published in 2025, Five+ Short Stories, Small Press...presumably Hidden Gem but it might still count as "new release" so probably not that one.
