Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49

by Seanan McGuire

  Staff

  Guest Editor & Original Fiction Editor:

  Christie Yant

  Reprints Editor:

  Rachel Swirsky

  Flash Fiction Editor:

  Robyn Lupo

  Managing Editor & Nonfiction Editor:

  Wendy N. Wagner

  Podcast Producer:

  Gabrielle de Cuir

  Podcast Host:

  Mur Lafferty

  Art Director:

  Galen Dara

  Assistant Editor:

  Jude Griffin

  Copy Editor:

  Dana Watson

  Assistant Copy Editor:

  Laurel Amberdine

  Illustrators:

  Li Grabenstetter

  Elizabeth Leggett

  Christine Mitzuk

  Hillary Pearlman

  Galen Dara (cover art)

  Spotlight Authors:

  Laurel Amberdine

  Jude Griffin

  Lee Hallison

  Sandra Odell

  First Readers:

  Laurel Amberdine

  Lisa Andrews

  Amber Barkley

  Kristi Charish

  Kate Galey

  Britt Gettys

  Jude Griffin

  Alyc Helms

  Sylvia Hiven

  Andrea Johnson

  Georgina Kamsika

  Louise Kane

  Sarah Kirkpatrick

  DeAnna Knippling

  Stephanie Lorée

  Gail Marsella

  Laura Newsholme

  Lianna Palkovick

  Stephanie Sursi

  Samantha Thomas

  Nicole Walters

  LaShawn Wanak

  Gwen Whiting

  Sandra Wickham

  Proofreaders:

  Debra Jess

  Rachael Jones

  Amanda Mitchell

  Sarah Slatton

  Promotional Logo Design:

  Jenn Reese

  Cover Design:

  Karen Jones

  Publisher:

  John Joseph Adams

  MISCELLANY

  Coming Attractions

  Coming up in July, in Lightspeed …

  We’ll have original science fiction by Adam-Troy Castro (“The New Provisions”) and Carrie Vaughn (“Harry and Marlowe Versus the Haunted Locomotive of the Rockies”), along with SF reprints by Jo Walton (“The Panda Coin”) and Howard Waldrop (“All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past”).

  Plus, we’ll have original fantasy by Theodora Goss (“Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology”) and Matthew Hughes (“A Hole in the World”), and fantasy reprints by Carmen Maria Machado (“Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead”) and Emma Bull (“De La Tierra”).

  For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella will be “Forlesen” by Gene Wolfe, and of course we’ll have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with award-winning author Karl Schroeder and legendary video game designer Richard Garriott.

  It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

  Looking ahead beyond next month, we’ve got a lot of great short fiction to share. We’ll be featuring work by writers like An Owomoyela, E. Catherine Tobler, Tahmeed Shafiq, Kat Howard, and many more. So be sure to keep an eye out for all that SFnal goodness in the months to come.

  And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

  Thanks for reading!

  Subscriptions & Ebooks

  Subscriptions: If you enjoy reading Lightspeed, please consider subscribing. It’s a great way to support the magazine, and you’ll get your issues in the convenient ebook format of your choice. All purchases from the Lightspeed store are provided in epub, mobi, and pdf format. A 12-month subscription to Lightspeed includes 96 stories (about 480,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction). The cost is just $35.88 ($12 off the cover price)—what a bargain! For more information, visit lightspeedmagazine.com/subscribe.

  Ebooks & Bundles: We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors ($3.99 each), and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Lightspeed ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! We currently have a number of ebook bundles available: Year One (issues 1-12), Year Two (issues 13-24), Year Three (issues 25-36), and the Supermassive Bundle (issues 1-36). Buying a bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So if you need to catch up on Lightspeed, that’s a great way to do so. Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store for more information.

  All caught up on Lightspeed? Good news! We also have lots of ebooks available from our sister-publications:

  Nightmare Ebooks, Bundles, & Subscriptions: Like Lightspeed, our sister-magazine Nightmare (nightmare-magazine.com) also has ebooks, bundles, and subscriptions available as well. For instance, you can get the complete first year (12 issues) of Nightmare for just $24.99; that’s savings of $11 off buying the issues individually. Or, if you’d like to subscribe, a 12-month subscription to Nightmare includes 48 stories (about 240,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction), will cost you just $25 (about $11 off the cover price).

  Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues—and ebook back issue bundles—of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine—all 57 issues—for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

  Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy Ebooks: As you probably know, the majority of our interviews are provided by The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, a podcast our esteemed editor produces for Wired.com. You’ve been able to read transcripts of most of the Geek’s Guide interviews here in Lightspeed for quite a while now, but now you can also read transcripts of the panel discussions. If you hop over to geeksguideshow.com and click on Transcripts, you can see which episodes are available. We’ve got the episodes bundled in threes, so if you buy one of the ebooks (for just $2.99), you get three full episode transcripts, which all contain a variety of panel discussions on all things geeky. You’ll also find one of our panel transcripts as bonus content at the end of this month’s ebook edition. Enjoy!

  About the Editors

  Christie Yant

  Guest Editor

  Christie Yant is a science fiction and fantasy writer, and Assistant Editor for Lightspeed Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 (Horton), Armored, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, Wired.com, and China’s Science Fiction World. Her work has received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Science Fiction (Dozois) and Best Horror of the Year (Datlow), and has been long-listed for StorySouth’s Million Writers Award. She lives on the central coast of California with two writers, an editor, and assorted four-legged nuisances. Follow her on Twitter @christieyant.

  Rachel Swirsky

  Reprints Editor

  Rachel Swirsky holds a master’s degree in fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and graduated from Clarion West in 2005. She’s published over 50 short stories in venues including the New Haven Review, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Sturgeon Award, and in 2010, her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” won the Nebula. If it were an option, she might choose to replace her hair with feathers, preferably bright macaw feathers.

  Robyn Lupo

  Flash Fiction Editor

  Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats, and an Assistant Editor for Lightspeed Magazine.

  Wendy N. Wagner

  Nonfiction Editor and Managing Editor

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bsp; Wendy N. Wagner’s short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Lovecraft eZine, Armored, The Way of the Wizard, and Heiresses of Russ 2013: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction. Her first novel, Skinwalkers, is a Pathfinder Tales adventure. She served as the Assistant Editor of Fantasy Magazine and is currently the Managing/Associate Editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare. An avid gamer and gardener, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her very understanding family. Follow her on Twitter @wnwagner.

  Gabrielle de Cuir

  Podcast Producer

  Gabrielle de Cuir has narrated over one hundred titles specializing in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. Her “velvet touch” as an actors’ director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost choice for bestselling authors and celebrities. She is the writer and director of the Award winning short film The Delivery, which deals with an Alice-in-Wonderland version of audiobooks. Her own film credits include Ghostbusters, American President, and Fright Night. She spent her childhood in Rome growing up with her wildly artistic and cinematic father, John de Cuir, four-time Academy Award winning Production Designer, an upbringing that taught her to be fluent in Romance languages and to have an unusual appetite for visual delights.

  Galen Dara

  Art Director

  Galen Dara sits in a dark corner listening to the voices in her head. She has a love affair with the absurd and twisted, and an affinity for monsters, mystics, and dead things. She has illustrated for 47 North, Edge Publishing, Lightspeed, Fireside Magazine, Apex publishing, Lackington Magazine and Goblin Fruit. Recent book covers include War Stories, Glitter & Mayhem, and Oz Reimagined. She won the 2013 Hugo for Best Fan Artist and is nominated for the 2014 Hugo for Best Professional Artist. Her website is www.galendara.com, and you can follow her on Twitter @galendara. Her illustrations for Lightspeed are collected at: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/tag/illustrated-by-galendara/.