Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Editorial

Editorial: September 2022

Welcome to Lightspeed’s 148th issue!

Our first SF story of the month might be one of our most timely. From writer MKRNYILGLD comes “The CRISPR Cookbook: A guide to biohacking your own abortion in a post-Roe world,” and the title does a great job describing it. Be sure not to miss it. Our flash SF this month, “Civilian Assumptions,” comes from Dominique Dickey, while our second piece of full-length SF is a wildly delightful story of bounty hunters, space travel, and strawberry lip gloss. Yes: lip gloss. Please enjoy R J Theodore’s “The Application of Strawberry Lip Gloss in a Low-Gravity Environment.” Our SF reprint this month is “Eminence,” by Karl Schroeder.

Jenny Rae Rappaport returns with “The Inheritance of Dust and Leather,” a flash fantasy story that’s a tale as old as time (or at least libraries). Kristina Ten’s story of seals and bad marriages, “The Queen of the Earless Seals of Lake Baikal,” will touch your heart, as will Martin Cahill’s magical “Her Five Farewells.” Our fantasy reprint is “The Sister City,” by Cody Goodfellow.

Our review teams have been busy reading great new books, and our author spotlight interviewer has put together fascinating questions for our writers. If you’re one of our ebook readers, you’ll enjoy an excerpt from Desert Creatures, a new novel by Kay Chronister.

It’s another terrific month, so thanks for reading!

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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