Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Editorial

Editorial: January 2024

Welcome to issue 164 of Lightspeed Magazine! Let’s hear it for another year of terrific science fiction and fantasy, coming to you at the speed of light (or at least electrons).

Our science fiction shorts kick off with a story (“Shadow Films”) from Benjamin Peek about the film industry and a conspiracy theory sprouting from an unsettling truth. In the very poignant tale “We Shall Not Be Bitter at the End of the World,” David Anaxagoras captures an unusual group trying to cope with an incipient apocalypse. We also have a flash story (“Five Views of the Planet Tartarus”) from Rachael K. Jones, and another (“Night Desk Duty at the Infinite Paradox Hotel”) from Aimee Ogden.

Our fantasy shorts include a fascinating meditation on sacrifice and inter-species understanding in Sloane Leong’s “A Saint Between the Teeth.” Adam-Troy Castro returns to our pages with a new story about an irresistible offer in “Farewell to Faust.” We also have two terrific flash pieces: “In the Tree’s Hollow, a Doe” by Lowry Poletti and “To Be a Happy Man” from Thomas Ha.

Of course we’ve got our usual array of nonfiction: book reviews from our review team (what should you be reading when you’re not reading Lightspeed?), and spotlight interviews with our authors. And our ebook readers will enjoy an excerpt from Amy Avery’s new novel The Longest Autumn.

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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