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".

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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.

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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.