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Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 78 (November 2016)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 78, November 2016 FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, November 2016 SCIENCE FICTION Dinosaur Killers Chris Kluwe Under the Eaves Lavie Tidhar Natural Skin Alyssa Wong For Solo Cello, op. 12 Mary Robinette Kowal FANTASY Two Dead Men Alex Jeffers Shooting Gallery J.B. Park A Dirge for Prester John Catherynne M. Valente I've Come to Marry the Princess Helena Bell NOVELLA Karuna, Inc. Paul Di Filippo EXCERPTS The Genius Asylum Arlene F. Marks NONFICTION Media Review: Westworld The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy Book Reviews, November 2016 Kate M. Galey, Jenn Reese, Rachel Swirsky, and Christie Yant Interview: Stephen Baxter The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Chris Kluwe Lavie Tidhar J.B. Park Alyssa Wong Catherynne M. Valente Mary Robinette Kowal Helena Bell Paul di Filippo MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks About the Lightspeed Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams © 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Cover by Reiko Murakami www.lightspeedmagazine.com Editorial, November 2016 John Joseph Adams | 1064 words Welcome to issue seventy-eight of Lightspeed! We have original science fiction by Chris Kluwe (“Dinosaur Killers”) and Alyssa Wong (“Natural Skin”), along with SF reprints by Lavie Tidhar (“Under the Eaves”) and Mary Robinette Kowal (“For Solo Cello, op. 12”). Plus, we have original fantasy by J.B. Park (“Shooting Gallery”) and Helena Bell (“I’ve Come to Marry the Princess”), and fantasy reprints by Alex Jeffers (“Two Dead Men”) and Catherynne M. Valente (“A Dirge for Prester John”). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. For our ebook readers, we also have our usual ebook-exclusive novella reprint and an excerpt from The Genius Asylum by Arlene F. Marks. Lightspeed Reviews News This month we’re presenting a special focus on comics and graphic novels by four guest-columnists—Christie Yant, Jenn Reese, Kate Galey, and Rachel Swirsky—who stepped up to pinch-hit for us on short notice. We will announce our new regular book review columnist in the near future, who will be joining Andrew Liptak and Amal El- Mohtar in the rotation. Awards News The World Fantasy Awards were presented October 30 at the 2016 World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, OH. We’re very pleased to announce that one of our regular artists, Galen Dara, won the award for Best Artist, and Alyssa Wong’s story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” from our sister-magazine, Nightmare, won the award for Best Short Fiction! Congratulations to them both and all of the other winners and nominees. To see a full list of the World Fantasy Award results, visit locusmag.com. Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 As you may recall, in addition to editing Lightspeed and Nightmare, I am also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, which launched last year. The first volume was guest edited by Joe Hill, and the 2016 volume (which came out October 4) is guest edited by Karen Joy Fowler. The table of contents for the 2016 volume includes two stories from Lightspeed (“Things You Can Buy for a Penny” by Will Kaufman and “Tea Time” by Rachel Swirsky), as well as Salman Rushdie, Adam Johnson, Kelly Link, Ted Chiang, Kij Johnson, Maria Dahvana Headley, Sofia Samatar, Sam J. Miller, Charlie Jane Anders, Catherynne M. Valente, Liz Ziemska, S.L. Huang, Vandana Singh, Dale Bailey, Dexter Palmer, Julian Mortimer Smith, Nick Wolven, and Seth Dickinson. Visit johnjosephadams.com/basff to learn more and/or to order! New Anthology Release: What the #@&% is That? (Saga Press, Nov. 1, 2016) My new anthology—co-edited with Douglas Cohen—releases this month. Here’s the cover copy: Fear of the unknown—it is the essence of the best horror stories, the need to know what monstrous vision you’re beholding and the underlying terror that you just might find out. In this anthology, twenty authors have gathered to ask—and maybe answer—a question worthy of almost any horror tale: “What the #@&% is that?” Join these masters of suspense as they take you to where the shadows grow long, and that which lurks at the corner of your vision is all too real, with stories by Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Scott Sigler, Maria Dahvana Headley, Christopher Golden, Alan Dean Foster, Rachel Swirsky & An Owomoyela, and others. Visit johnjosephadams.com/wtf to learn more or buy the book. New Editions of Old Favorites Lightspeed readers are probably already familiar with most of my anthologies, but in case you missed one here or there, I thought it was worth pointing out that I just released new editions of my anthologies Federations and The Way of the Wizard. The new covers are both by the wonderful and talented Matt Bright at Inkspiral Design. Visit johnjosephadams.com/federations and johnjosephadams.com/way-of-the-wizard to check out the new covers or buy the books. People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror and Fantasy! Last month, our “Destroy” series continued over at our sister magazine, Nightmare, where Silvia Moreno-Garcia served as the guest editor of People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! She collected original fiction from Nadia Bulkin, Gabriela Santiago, Valerie Valdes, and Russell Nichols to help celebrate the work of creators of color in the horror field. Reprint editor Tananarive Due brought us four horror classics, including one from Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Díaz, and nonfiction editor Maurice Broaddus presented a stellar line-up of essays and interviews. Next month, the final volume in the POC Destroy series will publish as a special issue of Fantasy Magazine (which was merged into Lightspeed back in 2012). Guest editor Daniel José Older presents original fiction from N.K. Jemisin, Thoraiya Dyer, P. Djeli Clark, and Darcie Little Badger. Reprint editor Amal El-Mohtar selected four fantasy classics, from Sofia Samatar, Celeste Rita Baker, Shweta Narayan, and Leanne Simpson. And last, but not least, nonfiction editor Tobias S. Buckell will be bringing us an assortment of insightful essays and interviews. Learn more about both of these special issues—and the rest of the Destroy projects— at DestroySF.com. John Joseph Adams Books News In my role as editor of John Joseph Adams Books for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, I just acquired a novel by debut author Bryan Camp: The City of Lost Fortunes, a novel about a magician with a talent for finding lost things who is forced into playing a high stakes game with the gods of New Orleans for the heart and soul of the city. Publication date is tentatively scheduled for Spring 2018. Meanwhile, I also bought a story by Bryan for Lightspeed, so you’ll be seeing his short story debut sometime in the near future as well! • • • • That’s all we have to report this month. I hope you enjoy the issue, and thanks for reading! ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a new SF/Fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, including The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent and forthcoming projects include: Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated ten times) and is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Nightmare Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams. Dinosaur Killers Chris Kluwe | 1560 words Another rock fell today. Jaurez, on 54b. Pretty sure that’s who it was. Maybe. Didn’t talk much during the daily vidcalls, brown eyes peering out from beneath his shaggy black hair, floating every which way in zee-g. Supposed to keep it short, but company regs don’t apply. Not anymore. His kids were on Croia Hab. Partner too. Three of thousands, now just clouds of matter joining all the other debris. They mattered to Jaurez. Nuke came outwell, Jaurez went inwell. Set his crawler to max cycle, max vent, sold his soul to Newton and pushed the button. One way trip, no ticket back. He hit London. Pretty sure he hit London. Maybe. Or was it Paris? Close enough. Rocks don’t care. They just fall. Falling, falling, sticks and stones, break my bones, nukes will never stop me. They didn’t stop Jaurez. Ground did that. Or maybe it was the atmosphere. Crawlers aren’t rated for re-entry—company reg Two Eight Four Dash B. • • • • Used to watch vids on the old wars in school. Tanks racing across rocky ground, squads with matte black rifles, soundless drones dropping the reaper’s scythe. Gleaming electronics on sleek missiles, atmospheric lasers, the aesthetic art of death changing just as surely as any other fashion. Supposed to warn us, keep us from our heritage. Classmates thought it looked like fun, like a game. Sanitary violence, actions divorced from their grime, their blood, their cost. Corps thought they had a monopoly on that violence, up here in orbit.
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