Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE Kickstarter graphic. Left side: Bright light blue background with rays (as of light) bursting out from the center. Central image is an open book with a rocket blasting up out of it. Below the book is the LIGHTSPEED magazine wordmark; the word lightspeed is rendered in a orange-to-yellow gradient, with a white outline around it and dropshadow underneath it. Right side: Bright light yellow background with rays (as of light) bursting out from the center. Central image is an open book with a haunted house emerging from it. Below the book is the NIGHTMARE magazine wordmark; the word nightmare is rendered in a dark red to lighter red gradient, with a white outline around it and dropshadow underneath it. Top: the words "LIVE on Kickstarter"

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Series Archive: Robot Country

 

Science Fiction

One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit

Isla didn’t consider herself much of an outdoor person, but after five layoffs and a breakup, she found herself in a drone warehouse at the border of the barren wasteland known as Robot Country. She consulted the map on her tablet. To the west was the Gila National Forest. So, trees. She clicked on the forest icon and up popped some names of trees. Arizona sycamore, Douglas fir, Aspen. To the south was desert and the Mexican border. To the east was an even more extreme kind of desert, the White Sands National Monument, where atomic bombs had been tested in the previous century.

Science Fiction

Her Appetite, His Heart

It came to Javi in a vision while he was at Burning Man. There was something calling out to him, and he’d hoped an ayahuasca ceremony would help him figure out what it was. It was during the ceremony that she appeared to him. Isla. In his vision, she was a temple priestess and he was laid out on a sacrificial stone table. She was literally eating his engorged heart out of his chest cavity. It wasn’t as frightening as it sounded. It was only when the vision disappeared that he felt an aching in his chest. Isla, come back.