TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 79, December 2016 FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, December 2016 SCIENCE FICTION The Cyborg, the Tinman, the Merchant of Death Rich Larson The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross Margo Lanagan The Venus Effect Joseph Allen Hill This Is as I Wish to Be Restored Christie Yant FANTASY The War Between the Water and the Road William Alexander Every Day Is the Full Moon Carlie St. George Daya and Dharma Shweta Narayan The Death of Paul Bunyan Charles Payseur NOVELLA Twenty Lights to "The Land of Snow": Excerpts from The Computer Logs of Our Reluctant Dalai Lama Michael Bishop EXCERPTS The Traitor Baru Cormorant Seth Dickinson NONFICTION Review: Arrival Carrie Vaughn Book Reviews, December 2016 Amal El-Mohtar Interview: Nancy Kress The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Rich Larson William Alexander Margo Lanagan Carlie St. George Joseph Allen Hill Shweta Narayan Christie Yant Charles Payseur MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks About the Lightspeed Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams © 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Cover by Lovely Creatures Studio www.lightspeedmagazine.com Editorial, December 2016 John Joseph Adams | 952 words Welcome to issue seventy-nine of Lightspeed! We have original science fiction by Rich Larson (“The Cyborg, the Tinman, the Merchant of Death”) and Joseph Allen Hill (“The Venus Effect”), along with SF reprints by Margo Lanagan (“The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross”) and Christie Yant (“This Is As I Wish To Be Restored”). Plus, we have original fantasy by Carlie St. George (“Every Day Is the Full Moon”) and Charles Payseur (“The Death of Paul Bunyan”), and fantasy reprints by William Alexander (“The War Between the Water and the Road”) and Shweta Narayan (“Daya and Dharma”). As usual, we’ve put together some terrific nonfiction, including an interview with award-winning author Nancy Kress, plus our usual author spotlight mini-interviews. Of course, our media and book review team has put together some sensational insights about what to read and watch, as well. For our ebook readers, we also have an ebook-exclusive novella reprint from Michael Bishop (“Twenty Lights to ‘The Land of Snow’”) and a book excerpt. • • • • 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 latest anthology—co-edited with Douglas Cohen—published last 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 recently 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! In October, 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. This month, the final volume in the POC Destroy series publishes 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 recently 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. The Cyborg, the Tinman, the Merchant of Death Rich Larson | 4260 words Sarge knew before I did, of course, but I still had to take him the transfer orders. I didn’t know how to feel on my way to the officers’ mess. I would miss my unit and I would miss my Sarge, but it was an honor, everyone said, to get shifted up to Incisive Maneuvers. To work with the Cyborg. The Tinman. The Merchant of Death. There’s all kinds of names get floated around for him. Sarge calls him by his rank. “So you’re with Petty Officer Cox,” he said, taking my half-rolled screen and pushing his thumb against it without hardly reading. He didn’t give it back right away. “That’s an honor,” he said. “Everyone been telling you that, I imagine.” “Yes, sir,” I said. Sarge stared off into space. “High fatality rate in Maneuvers,” he said. “Everyone been telling you that?” “Some,” I said, because my boy Hans told me I was good as dead going in with the Tinman, said his cousin’s cousin only lasted a couple months in IM. His breath was all commissary rum when he told me that and he cried a little. “My advice is to stick close to him,” Sarge said, no need to explain who “him” was. “But not too close. He’s not like you and me. He doesn’t think like you and me. All right?” “He’s a hero, isn’t he?” I asked. “I mean, decorated and all. Eight hundred kills or so.” I’d looked them up: 839 confirmed ghosts and maybe double that never got tagged. The Merchant of Death’s not human, like Sarge said. “He’s a hero,” Sarge said. “He’s damn near a god. I seen him, once, in action on Pentecost. Took out an artillery nest single-handed. Must have capped a dozen soldiers and did the operators, too. Just slaughtered them.” He paused again. “When you’re a god, you don’t think of people the same way.