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: December 2021

by John Joseph Adams

Published in Dec. 2021 (Issue 139) | 381 words

Welcome to Lightspeed’s 139th issue!

Good news first: At the World Fantasy Convention last month, we were delighted to hear that Celeste Rita Baker’s story “Glass Bottle Dancer” won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction! If you missed that one–or just want to re-read this charming tale–you can find it in our April 2020 issue (lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/glass-bottle-dancer).

We’re wrapping up the year with even more terrific speculative fiction. Our first fantasy story this month is a tale of gods, bravery, and new beginnings from Donyae Coles: “When Sri Left the Ruined City”—perfect for all of us thinking about the new goals and challenges in our future. If you’re a crafter, then this time of year can be exhausting. You’ll really appreciate how one gift goes awry in Carrie Vaughn’s newest story, “Entanglement, or How I Failed to Knit a Sweater for My Boyfriend.” We also have a beautiful and romantic piece of flash fiction (“Writing You”) from Sharang Biswas. Our fantasy reprint this month is by E. Lily Yu (“Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire”).

Our first full-length SF story, Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko’s “Red Is Our Country” follows the footsteps of intrepid Martian explorers—from a unique point of view. Aimee Ogden gives us an elegiac tale of far-future tourism in “Ten Things to See Before the World Burns.” And just for fun, we have two SF stories about fairy tales! That’s right—fairy tales aren’t just for fantasy these days. We think you’ll enjoy “Fairy Tale,” a new flash piecefrom Adam-Troy Castro, as  well as “Fairy Tales for Robots” by Sofia Samatar (our SF reprint).

In this issue, we welcome Aigner Loren Wilson to our team of book reviewers! Be sure to check out her work, plus of course reviews from Arley and Chris, who have been reading up a storm. We also have spotlight interviews with our authors, and of course, for our e-readers, an excerpt from the new novel The Undertakers, by Nicole Glover.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful last few weeks of 2021, and looking forward to a new year that’s packed with great reads.

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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.