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: June 2024

by John Joseph Adams

Published in June 2024 (Issue 169) | 186 words

Welcome to issue 169 of Lightspeed Magazine!

Both of our SF short stories explore the realm of the robotic. Andrea Kriz starts us off with “Udo Gehler and the Virgin Bitch of the Resistance,” a novelette about a young mecha pilot in a soul-crushing society. Oyedotun Damilola Muees brings us a killing machine with a conscience in his new epistolary story “Warning Notes from an Annihilator Machine.” We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Waking Sleep of a Seething Wound” from dave ring and “The Help Hotline” by Dominica Phetteplace.

Our fantasy shorts both wrestle with the gods and fate. Varsha Dinesh spins a tale of gods, magic, and body modification in “Sparrow and the Parasol.” In Deborah L. Davitt’s new “In the Hands of the Mountain God,” an icy pilgrimage turns into something more complicated. Megan Chee has a flash story, “An Otherworldly Cat Tells You the Secrets of the Universe,” as does Shanna Germain (“The Weight of Salt”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

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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.