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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Editorial

Editorial: September 2025

by John Joseph Adams

Published in Sep. 2025 (Issue 184) | 183 words

Welcome to issue 184 of Lightspeed Magazine!

We’re kicking off the month with a new SF short by Kel Coleman: “Last Meal Aboard the Awassa,” a space-faring tale about the importance of gratitude and community in the face of adversity. In C.Z. Tacks’ “The Girlfriend Experience,” we steer into a more cyberpunk-flavored experience. We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Place I Came To” from Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko and “City of One” by Stephen S. Power.

Our original fantasy includes “Apeiron,” a new short by Cadwell Turnbull that perfectly captures what it’s like to parent a talented and gifted teen . . . but with a magical twist. Isabel J. Kim brings us a beautiful story about sirens, family, and the power of love in “Human Voices.” We also have a flash story (“Beginning Before and After The End”) from Jake Stein and another (“On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting”) from Bogi Takács.

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

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John Joseph Adams

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John Joseph Adams is the editor and publisher of the Hugo Award-winning Lightspeed and publisher of its sibling magazine, Nightmare. He’s also the editor of more than fifty anthologies, including the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy series, Wastelands, A People’s Future of the United States, and the New York Times bestselling Out There Screaming (with Jordan Peele). John is a winner of the Hugo, Stoker, Locus, and British Fantasy awards, and is 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 ran a novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lately, he’s also been working as an editor and game designer on TTRPG projects for Kobold Press, Paizo, and Monte Cook Games. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com.