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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Podcasts

Science Fiction

The Sense of the Circle

by Angélica Gorodischer
Translated by Amalia Gladhart

Author spotlight

Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito.

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Science Fiction

Let’s Take This Viral

by Rich Larson

Author spotlight

Default hadn’t been down in the nocturns for some time, probably half an orbit, but he had just dissolved the geneshare contract with his now-ex-lover and needed to get completely fucking perforated to take his mind off things. His lift was full of revelers all laughing and widecasting the same synthesized whalesong from Old Old Earth.

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Fantasy

The Bolt Tightener

by Sarena Ulibarri

Author spotlight

“There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.”

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Fantasy

Lily Red

by Karen Joy Fowler

Author spotlight

One day Lily decided to be someone else. Someone with a past. It was an affliction of hers, wanting this. The desire was seldom triggered by any actual incident or complaint but seemed instead to be related to the act or prospect of lateral movement. She felt it every time a train passed.

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Fantasy

The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest

by M. Bennardo

Author spotlight

A loon called this morning, loud and clear in the cold hours before dawn, but it was not that which woke me from my sleep. As I opened my eyes, the bay and the beach were wrapped in heavy blackness, invisible clouds shutting out any hint of starlight above. For a moment, I lay in my lean-to, breathing heavily under the shaggy bison skin blanket.

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Science Fiction

Harry and Marlowe Escape the Mechanical Siege of Paris

by Carrie Vaughn

Author spotlight

Harry looked out the window and thought: At least I saw Paris one more time before it was destroyed in the bombardment.

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Science Fiction

Eight Episodes

by Robert Reed

Author spotlight

With minimal fanfare and next to no audience, Invasion of a Small World debuted in the summer of 2016, and after a brief and disappointing run, the series was deservedly shelved.

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Fantasy

Prolegomenon to the Adventures of Chílde Phoenix

by Marly Youmans

Author spotlight

Perhaps you’ve heard an anecdote about a child named Cresencio who was skipping barefoot between hills of corn when a shallow bowl in the field, long turbulent with mutterings, broke into pieces. Cresencio spied a tongue of smoke, like the mockings of a demon; he bent, staring into the jagged mouth that was about to spatter the nearby trees with sparks and set his childhood on fire.

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Fantasy

Purity Test

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Author spotlight

My feet are scraped and bleeding, my slippers shredded and almost useless. The dress hangs in tatters around me. No longer white, it still bears the pearls along the bodice, and I hope I can keep them close and sell them in whatever town I find myself in. Provided I find a town. Provided I ever leave these woods. I have traveled for two days, surviving on puddle water and berries, hoping that the sounds I hear behind me aren’t my father, Roland, and the dogs.

In Jan. 2013 (Issue 32)

Fantasy

Daltharee

by Jeffrey Ford

Author spotlight

You’ve heard of bottled cities, no doubt—society writ miniscule and delicate beyond reason: toothpick spired towns, streets no thicker than thread, pin-prick faces of the citizenry peering from office windows smaller than sequins. Hustle, politics, fervor, struggle, capitulation, wrapped in a crystal firmament might reclaim the land, stoppered at the top to keep reality both in and out. Those microscopic lives, striking glass at the edge of things, believed themselves gigantic, their dilemmas universal.

In Jan. 2013 (Issue 32)