Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 159 (August 2023): Lightspeed Magazine, #159

By John Joseph Adams

LIGHTSPEED is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF-and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.

 

Welcome to issue 159 of LIGHTSPEED! Scott Edelman returns to our pages with a new piece of science fiction: "The Letters They Left Behind," the story of a mother torn between her love for her daughter and her duty to her planet. Lowry Poletti writes about the complexity of relationships, human or not, in the story "In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance." Our flash stories include "The Things You Can Maintain Yourself" by Benjamin C. Kinney and "Monopticon" from Dani Atkinson. Our original fantasy shorts include a bloodthirsty tale of dark magic in Sloane Leong's new story "The Blade and the Bloodwright." David Anaxagoras mixes faerie with prescribed burns in his short story "The Boy Who Ran from His Faerie Heart." We also have a flash story ("All the Colours of the Death Knell") from Russell Hemmell, and another ("You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension") from Isabel J. Kim. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy a book excerpt from Katy Rose Pool's new novel, GARDEN OF THE CURSED.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223387657

John Joseph Adams

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent books include The Apocalypse Triptych (consisting of The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come), and series editor for The Best American Fantasy and Science Fiction. John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award and is a six-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, and is a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

Book preview

Title_PageLightspeed Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 159 (August 2023)

FROM THE EDITOR

Publisher's Note

Editorial: August 2023

SCIENCE FICTION

The Things You Can Maintain Yourself

Benjamin C. Kinney

The Letters They Left Behind

Scott Edelman

Monopticon

Dani Atkinson

In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance

Lowry Poletti

FANTASY

The Blade and the Bloodwright

Sloane Leong

All the Colours of the Death Knell

Russell Hemmell

The Boy Who Ran from His Faerie Heart

David Anaxagoras

You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension

Isabel J. Kim

EXCERPTS

Garden of the Cursed

Katy Rose Pool

NONFICTION

Book Review: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Arley Sorg

Book Review: The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Aigner Loren Wilson

Book Review: Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi

Chris Kluwe

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Sloane Leong

Scott Edelman

David Anaxagoras

Lowry Poletti

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions

Stay Connected

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

About the Lightspeed Team

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

© 2023 Lightspeed Magazine

Cover by Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure) / Dreamstime

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From_the_Editor

Publisher's Note: August 2023

John Joseph Adams | 184 words

Dear Readers,

I owe you an(other) apology. I messed up (again).

This note is added in retrospect to this issue, following the discovery in April 2024 that the cover art we used was AI-generated. This issue's original cover was posted to Shutterstock by the same user (and is in a similar style), so we have to assume it is AI-generated as well. Thus, we're replacing the cover and reposting the ebooks.

What follows is the publisher's note we included in the April 2024 issue after this error was discovered, which gives the context and conveys our regret:

As you likely know, AI-generated texts and images have become a bit of plague in recent times. We've committed to not using such works, but, even when one is diligent, one can be fooled—as it seems we were. The original cover of the April issue was an image we licensed from Shutterstock from Ardea-studio (image ID 2284604323), which, after further review today, I’m pretty confident it is indeed AI-generated.

We used to use Adobe Stock, but switched to Shutterstock last year because Adobe was slow to roll out an AI-generated filter, but Shutterstock had one. Shutterstock’s filter is not all that great, it turns out, and we recently decided to switch back to Adobe Stock because they have since implemented a filter, and it seems to be much better.

A reader emailed one of our vendors today to inquire if they’re okay selling titles with AI-generated art, and they passed that information along to me. I investigated, and it is now my opinion that the reader was correct.

Since AI-generated images became rife, we have been seeking ways to ensure we don’t accidentally license one. There are AI-generated image detectors you can find online, but I tested some and did research, and it seemed—at least at the time—that they generated a fair amount of false positives, so I haven’t relied on using those. Once this reader complaint came to light, I ran the image through Adobe Stock’s Find Similar Image feature, and that found a fair number of images that look very similar, from a variety of users, and Adobe Stock’s filter has them flagged as AI.

I thought we were safe with this image, because the Ardea-studio user’s profile looks like a real graphic artist/designer’s profile to me—though, I note that when I look up that particular image now, it says it is no longer available. This user has their email address in their profile, so I have emailed them, but I didn’t want to wait to reissue a new version of the issue with a new cover. Perhaps there’s some reasonable explanation—like they posted it for sale, then reconsidered the ethics of selling AI-generated art and took it down—and perhaps not. Hopefully the user will reply and let us know; in which case, I will update this note on the Lightspeed website and also include a note in the May issue.

In any case, I deeply apologize for this error, and I will of course strive to not let it happen again. We have previously committed—and remain committed—to not use AI-generated works in the magazines, and we deeply regret that we accidentally let it happen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and is the bestselling editor of more than forty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent anthologies include Out There Screaming (with Jordan Peele), The Far Reaches (from Amazon Original Stories), Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, A People’s Future of the United States, and the three volumes of The Dystopia Triptych. A two-time Hugo Award-winner, John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed and is the publisher of its sister-magazines, Fantasy and Nightmare. For five years, he ran the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lately, he’s been working as an editor on various roleplaying game books for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Tome of Heroes. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.

Editorial: August 2023

John Joseph Adams | 714 words

Welcome to issue 159 of Lightspeed Magazine!

Scott Edelman returns to our pages with a new piece of science fiction: The Letters They Left Behind, the story of a mother torn between her love for her daughter and her duty to her planet. Lowry Poletti writes about the complexity of relationships, human or not, in the story In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance. Our flash stories include The Things You Can Maintain Yourself by Benjamin C. Kinney and Monopticon from Dani Atkinson.

Our original fantasy shorts include a bloodthirsty tale of dark magic in Sloane Leong’s new story The Blade and the Bloodwright. David Anaxagoras mixes faerie with prescribed burns in his short story The Boy Who Ran from His Faerie Heart. We also have a flash story (All the Colours of the Death Knell) from Russell Hemmell, and another (You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension) from Isabel J. Kim.

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy a book excerpt from Katy Rose Pool’s new novel, Garden of the Cursed.

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Publisher’s Note: Kindle Periodicals is Closing, and We Need Your Support More Than Ever.

Many of you have likely already heard about the new existential threat to Lightspeed and all of the other digital magazines in the SF/F/H field: the impending closure, in September, of Amazon’s Kindle Periodicals program. They will be transitioning some magazines into Kindle Unlimited, and so in some respects things may continue as normal if you subscribe via Kindle Periodicals—but this shift will cut severely into the finances of any magazine currently using the service; Lightspeed, for instance, will see our largest source of funding cut it in half. (For additional information about this seismic shift, you can see Neil Clarke’s deep dive into the details at neil-clarke.com/amazon-kindle-subscriptions.)

What We Can Do About This

The best thing you can do if you are a Kindle Periodicals subscriber is to migrate your subscription over to one of our other subscription options. Currently, we have the following options available:

Subscribe direct via our website: We have options for 6 month, 12 month, 24 month, and Lifetime subscriptions. We’re in the process of also bringing back the pay-as-you-go monthly subscriptions (i.e., the way Kindle Periodicals currently works) as well. Your issues can be delivered to your Kindle or Kindle app of choice the same way they are via Kindle Periodicals, though they’d appear on your device as regular eBooks rather than the special periodical format Kindle Periodicals forced us to use.

Subscribe via Weightless Books: Weightless Books’s subscriptions work exactly like our Direct subscriptions, though they only have 6 and 12 month options.

Become a Patreon patron: If you just want to support Lightspeed and the other Adamant Press magazines (without getting ebooks in return), you can become one of our Patrons at Patreon. You’d be able to choose any amount that you’d like to pledge to support us, either monthly or annually.

Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/support for more info about all of the above.

Why We Need Your Support

There are no big companies supporting or funding Adamant Press’s magazines—and Adamant itself is kind of a two-person show—so the magazines really rely on reader support. Because of that, it’s vital for us to keep as many Kindle Periodicals subscribers—which the vast majority of our subscribers are—as possible during this upheaval. So, please—if you care about the continuation of Lightspeed and any other genre magazines you subscribe to, please take this to heart and help us make this transition.

Thank You for Being a Subscriber

Thanks so much for your generous support over the months or years you’ve been a subscriber. Together, we can ensure that Lightspeed will continue coming to you every month for many years to come.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and is the bestselling editor of more than forty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent anthologies include Out There Screaming (with Jordan Peele), The Far Reaches (from Amazon Original Stories), Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, A People’s Future of the United States, and the three volumes of The Dystopia Triptych. A two-time Hugo Award-winner, John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed and is the publisher of its sister-magazines, Fantasy and Nightmare. For five years, he ran the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lately, he’s been working as an editor on various roleplaying game books for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Tome of Heroes. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.

Science_FictionOut There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele

The Things You Can Maintain Yourself

Benjamin C. Kinney | 967 words

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Please see our important Publisher’s Note following this month’s Editorial that has important information about a new threat to the survival of all SF/F/H magazines.

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Jill wiped xylem from her gloves and closed her car’s leafy hood. She’d kept Snapdragon on the road for almost twenty years, and if the world would leave her alone, she could keep him alive for five more, easy.

It wouldn’t, and she couldn’t. No amount of repairs today would spare Snapdragon from the weeding, or her from the pain of uprooting a thing she loved.

She’d do what needed doing. Somehow.

She set down her toolbox, rubbed Snapdragon’s flower-petal roof, and let him trundle the ten feet from her backyard to the communal pasture. He nestled in alongside the other cars, oblivious to the way his boxy patchwork body stood out against the other cars’ sleek single-plant designs. Snapdragon extended his quickroots and wrapped them around the fertilizer spigot like the rest.

The cars looked all alike in the dimming light. Sunset above, but its colors weren’t what they used to be. Some things’ time had come and gone, like the crimson and orange of a polluted sky.

A sledgehammer and a box of car-grade targetpoison sat on her back porch. She picked up a beer instead. Time enough for another drink for them both, in the warm fleeting evening of September in Oregon.

Maudlin. She wasn’t going to die anytime soon. Never give up, and do what needs doing, no matter how many people give up on you.

Old Xavier waved to her from a garden across the pasture. Jill took a swig of beer, the bottle blocking her face. Her boys would’ve been horrified to see her ignore their so-called grandpa, but they’d find reasons to yell at her no matter what she did. This wasn’t the kind of day when she could handle conversation with other people.

Snapdragon’s time was up, no matter how well she’d kept him. Forty years of biotech had done their job. Atmospheric carbon was at its lowest level in three hundred years. The climate models said: time to shift from reduction to stabilization. Every year, ten percent of the old high-capture cars had to come off the roads.

Snapdragon was a ’79, from the era when they made cars you could repair with some biotools and know-how. Jill had replaced every part she could name. A new transmission after a hundred and fifty thousand miles. New chairs after the mess with her younger son’s boyfriend. She’d even managed a new computer, because the company was kind enough to release their seed code when they went out of business.

Modern cars were a single