Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Editorial

Editorial: May 2025

Welcome to issue 180 of Lightspeed Magazine!

This issue is full of stories turning things on their heads. For example, one of our flash shorts, “Where Are They Now?” by Meg Elison, tells the story of touring the Wonka factory from the perspective of Augustus Gloop, and it’s a wildly different experience than the original! In one of our longer fantasy works, Martin Cahill tells a story (“The Price of Manners”) about a cursed tome with a legacy of death and destruction. But what if all that chaos is a big misunderstanding?

Our fantasy fiction continues with a powerful secondary world fantasy: “Ninnagan Says Remember” by Jonathan Olfert, a story of both resistance and redemption. And we have a great flash story (“Shadows on the Pavement”) from R. P. Sand.

Our science fiction shorts include “Rthing It Up: An Oral History,” Gene Doucette’s all-too-human take on an alien invasion. In her story “Through the Machine,” P.A. Cornell dives into the potential impact of AI on film. Given the state of our world today, both of these SF short stories are a little too plausible for comfort—and that’s a great reason to read them both. We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Temporal Displacement of the Graves” from Russell Nichols and “The Meaning We Seek” by Nancy Kress.

Our nonfiction this month includes author spotlight interviews with our writers and of course three reviews of exciting new books.

Thanks for joining us for another terrific issue!

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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