Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

Slide 1: in a fun, witchy font: Magic & Mystery, Amazon Original Stories; Slide 2-5: Fantasy Authors Turn to Crime, Curated by John Joseph Adams: Lists authors Travis Baldree, Sarah Beth Durst, Heather Fawcett, Scott Lynch, Tananarive Due, J.M. Miro, and Robert Jackson Bennet. Slide 6: Small renderings of all seven book covers; Slide 7: a magical cat face with paw prints to the left and right, with the words "The Game is Afoot / July 28".

Advertisement

Editorial

Editorial: April 2026

Welcome to issue 191 of Lightspeed Magazine!

If you love a Weird West adventure, then you are in luck, because we are serializing Ashok K. Banker’s novelette “Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley,” a new story of kidnapping, body modifications, and a most lovable half-wolf, half-horse steed. If the name “Six-Gun Vixen” rings a bell, it’s because she first appeared in “Six-Gun Vixen and the Dead Coon Trashgang” all the way back in our eighty-first issue.

The fantasy fun continues with two great flash stories: “Hell Is Empty” from J.R. Dawson and “Time Management” from P.A. Cornell. Our SF flash includes “Dad Died on Discord” by Andrew Dana Hudson and “Update on Rules for the Spatiotemporal Use of Campus Spaces” by Andrea Kriz.

Our first piece of original SF this month is V.M. Ayala’s “Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight.” Dr. Justin C. Key returns to our pages with “Empathetic Psychosis,” a speculative story about helping treat mental illness.

To learn more about our authors, don’t miss our author spotlight interviews. Our review team has also put together an array of book recommendations, so when you’re done reading this fantastic issue, you can find your next great read.

Enjoyed this article? Consider supporting us via one of the following methods:

John Joseph Adams

John_Joseph_Adams_2018_220x169px

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the New York Times bestselling editor of more than fifty 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 sibling-magazine Nightmare. 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 and game designer on various TTRPG projects for Kobold Press, Paizo, and Monte Cook Games. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com.