Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Editorial

Editorial: February 2025

Welcome to issue 177 of Lightspeed Magazine!

This month we’re serializing an original science fiction novelette by Lowry Poletti: “It Holds Her in the Palm of One Hand.” If you love SF about creatures with the ability of space flight, this piece will really speak to you—and if you live with domesticated animals, it will certainly make you question your relationship with them. We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Books to Take at the End of the World” from Carolyn Ives Gilman and “My Girlfriend Is a Nebula” by David DeGraff.

Our original fantasy shorts include “Some to Cradle, Some to Eat” by Eugenia Triantafyllou, which blends fairy tale creatures with real family struggles to poignant effect. Kristina Ten returns to our pages with her new story “What We Don’t Know About Angels,” which captures the heartbreak of watching a loved one suffer from cancer. We also have two thought-provoking flash stories: “An Omodest Proposal” by Andrew Dana Hudson, and “Standardized Test” by Seoung Kim.

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. It’s another great issue, so thanks for joining us!

John Joseph Adams

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John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the New York Times bestselling editor of more than forty 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 sister-magazines Nightmare and Fantasy. 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 on various TTRPG projects for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Kobold Press’s Tome of Heroes. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com.

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