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: January 2021

by John Joseph Adams

Published in Jan. 2021 (Issue 128) | 250 words

Welcome to Lightspeed’s 128th issue!

We’re kicking off the year with an original short by Anjali Sachdeva (“The Incorruptible World”), which asks the big question: If you could design the world to your taste, what would you include, and what would you leave out? And more dangerously: What would you forget? Our other original SF short is an alien tale (“The Memory Plague”) from D. Thomas Minton that digs into the nature of identity and memory and the very worth of life. Our SF reprints are from An Owomoyela (“The Hard Spot in the Glacier”) and Greg van Eekhout (“On the Fringes of the Fractal”).

Our first fantasy original is from Adam-Troy Castro (“Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat”) that mixes vicious beasts with a little bit of physics’ observer effect.  We also have another original fairy tale from P H Lee, the chilly story of “Frost’s Boy”—it will leave you ready for a hot cup of cocoa. Our fantasy reprints are from Maria Dahvana Headley (“The Orange Tree”) and Liz Ziemska (“The Mushroom Queen”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, and our ebook readers will get to see a sneak peek of Greg Bear’s new novel, The Unfinished Land. Our nonfiction department is reorganizing a bit, but you we’ve got three fantastic book reviews for you to dig into. Hope you enjoy the issue, and see you next month!

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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.