Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Editorial

Editorial: August 2024

Welcome to issue 171 of Lightspeed Magazine!

It’s hard to think of two topics more SFnal than time travel and robots, and so we’re delighted to present this month’s two extremely science fictional short stories. Richard Thomas gives time travel a spooky spin his new tale “The Darkness Between the Stars.” Archita Mittra spins a tale of android friendship in her story “The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strain’d.” We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Resistance” from Cat Rambo and “Under the Skin” by Deborah L. Davitt.

Astronomy can’t shake its connections to the gods, not when so many constellations are named for mythological entities, and Dominique Dickey delves into both topics in their hard-hitting fantasy tale “Look at the Moon.” Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe turns our gaze away from the sky in his magical story “Child of the River.” We also have a flash story (“Mud Maidens Rise”) from K.A. Wiggins, and very special fairy tale retelling (“What’s in a Name”) from Matthew Hughes.

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

It’s another terrific issue—thanks for reading!

John Joseph Adams

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John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the New York Times bestselling editor of more than forty anthologies, such as Wastelands, A People’s Future of the United States, and Out There Screaming (with Jordan Peele). He is also editor (and publisher) of the Hugo Award-winning magazine Lightspeed and is publisher of its sister-magazines Nightmare and Fantasy. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award, a winner of the Stoker,  Locus, and ENNIE awards, and a ten-time World Fantasy Award finalist. In addition to his short fiction work, he’s the co-creator of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, and for five years he was the editor of the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lately, he’s been working as an editor on various TTRPG projects for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Kobold Press’s Tome of Heroes. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com.

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