Eugie Foster’s stunning novelette, “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” [originally published in Interzone] is the highlight of Apex Magazine’s August 2009 issue. Each day, the nameless narrator dons a different, exquisitely crafted mask and takes on a persona tied to that mask, complete with unique life circumstances. All of the citizens in the Queen’s domain are engaged in an intricate dance of rotating personalities and social interactions. Each persona lasts for only one day, and citizens never speak of the lives associated with masks other than the one worn at the moment. But the narrator begins to feel a niggling sense of dissatisfaction, a blasphemous desire to avoid the masks connected with painful lives. And then another citizen does the unthinkable: she unmasks him, leaving the narrator stripped of identity and paralyzed with fear. She leads him into a secret chamber under the Mask Maker’s guild palace, and toward the possibility of a new life – a life governed by the narrator’s own will.

Foster paints this uniquely imagined society in vivid hues, by turns beautiful and terrifying. She draws the reader in with lush descriptions and holds her by doling out tantalizing morsels just as the reader craves them. From its intriguing beginning to its shocking end, “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” is a gem not to be missed.

In Brad Becraft’s “Kenny 149,” Kenny is the last survivor, bleeding on a battlefield with no company but the talking mud he knows is a delusion. It’s happened before – 148 times before, in fact. But the docs always fix him up with the appropriate upgrade so he can fight another day. Kenny has been fighting for humanity’s survival almost since the aliens first arrived. But after all the battles and all the replacement parts and implanted improvements is he human himself anymore?

“Kenny 149″ explores the nature of humanity in a world of technological achievements so great as to produce near immortality. As in many stories of this type, it asks the costs of those achievements and whether they are worth it. Thought-provoking questions, to be sure. But the story’s message becomes apparent too soon in the narrative, rendering the finish a bit anti-climactic.

“Pimp My Airship” by Maurice Broaddus is an alternate-reality steampunk piece with an African-American twist. Blacks and other minority groups live as nominally free citizens segregated into “undercities” in a Victorian-era America in which the Civil War never took place. Despite the government’s efforts to control the population through the widespread availability of narcotics, a movement for revolt is rising. And a daring but unlikely trio will provide its spark.

This piece feels a little pulpy for my taste. Despite the gaslights and dirigible, I’ve read or seen this story before many times. Its focus on non-white protagonists is laudable, but I was disappointed in the flatness of its characters: the “loser” protagonist who finds he has more inside than he knew, the self-sacrificing mentor, and the beautiful and brilliant token woman to round out the trio. This piece feels like it should have been longer, or part of a larger work. Perhaps if it were, the longer narrative could provide time for more nuanced character development and a deeper understanding of the social milieu in which the characters find themselves.