Welcome to issue thirty of Lightspeed!

This issue will be published on the first day of this year’s World Fantasy Convention, which means that shortly thereafter we will know the results of this year’s World Fantasy Awards, for which your humble editor is again nominated. The awards will be announced on November 4, starting at 1pm Eastern Time, so if you want to follow along, head to the internets around then.

The World Fantasy Convention will also see the debut of my new anthology, Epic: Legends of Fantasy. Epic is an anthology reprinting the best epic fantasy short fiction, featuring authors such as George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Robin Hobb, and more. If you’d like a sneak peek at what you’ll find in the anthology, check out “As the Wheel Turns” by Aliette de Bodard; you’ll find that story both here in this issue and in the anthology. And if you want more free reads (and/or interviews with the authors), head over to johnjosephadams.com/epic.

Last month saw the debut of our new sister-magazine, Nightmare. If you enjoy horror and dark fantasy, we hope you’ll check it out if you haven’t already. Our first issue featured four all-new stories by Laird Barron, Sarah Langan, Jonathan Maberry, and Genevieve Valentine; the November issue includes original fiction by horror legend Ramsey Campbell and up-and-coming writer Desirina Boskovich, along with classic reprints by Joe Haldeman and Poppy Z. Brite. Just visit www.nightmare-magazine.com, and either read it for free online, or buy one of our ebook editions—or subscribe!

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With all that out of the way, here’s what we’ve got on tap this month:

We have original science fiction by Sandra McDonald (“Searching for Slave Leia”) and Tom Crosshill (“A Well-Adjusted Man”), and SF reprints by Eleanor Arnason (“Ace 167”) and Tobias S. Buckell (“A Game of Rats and Dragon”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Jeremiah Tolbert (“La Alma Perdida de Marguerite Espinoza”) and Richard Bowes (“Seven Smiles and Seven Frowns”), along with fantasy reprints by Aliette de Bodard (“As the Wheel Turns”) and Carrie Vaughn (“A Princess of Spain”).

For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella is “West” by Orson Scott Card, and of course we have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with bestselling authors Alastair Reynolds and Terry Brooks.

Our issue this month is again sponsored by our friends at Orbit Books. This month, look for Red Country, the new epic fantasy novel by acclaimed author Joe Abercrombie. You can find more from Orbit—including digital short fiction and monthly ebook deals—at www.orbitbooks.net.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And remember, there are several ways you can sign up to be notified of new Lightspeed content:

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Well, that’s all there is to report this month. Thanks for reading!