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    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025): Lightspeed Magazine, #178
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025): Lightspeed Magazine, #178
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025): Lightspeed Magazine, #178
    Ebook177 pages1 hourLightspeed Magazine

    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025): Lightspeed Magazine, #178

    By John Joseph Adams

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    About this ebook

    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 178 of LIGHTSPEED! We're kicking off the issue with an original SF short by Cadwell Turnbull: "Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library." Who is Dekar Druid? Why is he trapped inside an infinite library? And how does he move inside the pages of all those books? You'll have to read it to find out. Adam-Troy Castro brings us an epistolary story of linguistic breakdown in his short, "Message in a Babel." Our flash pieces are both about space exploration and its terrible price: "Those Who Seek to Embrace The Sun" from Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and "Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition" by Rachael K. Jones. Our first original fantasy short-"Memories of Temperance" by Anya Ow-takes us into the underworld, as two unhappy spirits wander the afterlife on their own mysterious mission. "The Lexicon of Lethe" by Sunwoo Jeong is about a neighborhood struggling as words begin to vanish off of signs, menus . . . and out of people's minds. We also have a flash story in the form of a dark fairy tale from Jake Kerr ("Pure of Heart"). Nina Kiriki Hoffman brings us our final piece of fantasy flash: "The Shift."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdamant Press
    Release dateFeb 28, 2025
    ISBN9798230161561
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025): Lightspeed Magazine, #178
    Author

    John Joseph Adams

    John Joseph Adams is the series editor of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the editor of the Hugo Award–winning Lightspeed, and of more than forty anthologies, including Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, The Far Reaches, and Out There Screaming (coedited with Jordan Peele).

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      Book preview

      Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 178 (March 2025) - John Joseph Adams

      Title_PageLightspeed Magazine

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Issue 178 (March 2025)

      FROM THE EDITOR

      Editorial: March 2025

      SCIENCE FICTION

      Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library

      Cadwell Turnbull

      Those Who Seek to Embrace the Sun

      Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

      Message in a Babel

      Adam-Troy Castro

      Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition

      Rachael K. Jones

      FANTASY

      Pure of Heart

      Jake Kerr

      Memories of Temperance

      Anya Ow

      The Shift

      Nina Kiriki Hoffman

      The Lexicon of Lethe

      Sunwoo Jeong

      NONFICTION

      Book Review: The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

      Melissa A Watkins

      Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

      Chris Kluwe

      Book Review: Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, edited by Lee Mandelo

      Arley Sorg

      AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

      Cadwell Turnbull

      Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

      Anya Ow

      Sunwoo Jeong

      MISCELLANY

      Coming Attractions, April 2025

      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

      © 2025 Lightspeed Magazine

      Cover by Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure) / Shutterstock

      www.lightspeedmagazine.com

      Published by Adamant Press

      FROM THE EDITOR sectionADVERTISEMENT: The Dystopia Triptych anthology series

      Editorial: March 2025

      John Joseph Adams | 260 words

      Welcome to issue 178 of Lightspeed Magazine!

      We’re kicking off the issue with an original SF short by Cadwell Turnbull: Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library. Who is Dekar Druid? Why is he trapped inside an infinite library? And how does he move inside the pages of all those books? You’ll have to read it to find out. Adam-Troy Castro brings us an epistolary story of linguistic breakdown in his short, Message in a Babel. Our flash pieces are both about space exploration and its terrible price: Those Who Seek to Embrace The Sun from Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition by Rachael K. Jones.

      Our first original fantasy short—Memories of Temperance by Anya Ow—takes us into the underworld, as two unhappy spirits wander the afterlife on their own mysterious mission. The Lexicon of Lethe by Sunwoo Jeong is about a neighborhood struggling as words begin to vanish off of signs, menus . . . and out of people’s minds. We also have a flash story in the form of a dark fairy tale from Jake Kerr (Pure of Heart). Nina Kiriki Hoffman brings us our final piece of fantasy flash: The Shift.

      Our nonfiction team sees a shift as we welcome our new nonfiction editor, Kevin Figueroa Quiñones. He’ll be working with our delightful review team, who, as ever, have been reading all the best books. Find out what they recommend! We also have author spotlight interviews with our short fiction writers.

      Thanks for joining us for another terrific issue!

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the New York Times bestselling editor of more than forty anthologies, such as Wastelands, A People’s Future of the United States, and Out There Screaming (with Jordan Peele). He is also editor (and publisher) of the Hugo Award-winning magazine Lightspeed and is publisher of its sister-magazines Nightmare and Fantasy. Called the reigning king of the anthology world by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award, a winner of the Stoker,  Locus, and ENNIE awards, and a ten-time World Fantasy Award finalist. In addition to his short fiction work, he’s the co-creator of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, and for five years he was the editor of the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lately, he’s been working as an editor on various TTRPG projects for Kobold Press and Monte Cook Games and as a contributing game designer on books such as Kobold Press’s Tome of Heroes. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com.

      SCIENCE FICTION sectionBOOK COVER: Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams

      Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library

      Cadwell Turnbull | 4083 words

      Dekar Druid lives in an infinite library. Besides Ebizenum, who is in a special category of their own, he is the only living person in the library’s single tower. Outside, a forest surrounds the tower. There’s a lake a short walk to the north and a peak to the distant south. And nothing else. The lake is easy to get to, a respite on hot summer days, but Dekar Druid has never made it to the mountains, not even close, though he’s walked for miles southward, until the oppressive forest stole the breath from his lungs. He’s only tried the one time, an experience he does not intend to repeat.

      Truth be told, the infinite library may not be infinite. But Dekar Druid has climbed the spiral staircase up and up until, from a window, the forest lay obscured by clouds, and down and down into the dark and dank sub-basements and he hasn’t found a top or a bottom.

      From the base of the tower, the ground appears undisturbed. The interior of the tower also shows no signs of decay. Somehow, in this peculiar place, the library has remained, inside and out, untouched by the ravages of time.

      So, perhaps more curiously, has Dekar Druid.

      He is now on the fifteenth floor of the library—counted up from ground level, of course—sitting cross-legged on a leather-cushioned bench, bare feet drawn under him, with one book in his lap and a stack of yet more forming a spiraling, precarious tower on the table before him.

      He is skimming the pages of the book, his mind elsewhere. He’s read this one before, so the story hasn’t caught him, and may never again. Dekar is bored often. This is, in fact, his default state, and he’s grown so used to it that he can settle into the feeling for hours without the slightest discomfort. He is thinking now about lunch, what Ebizenum might prepare for him. He hopes it is a kabob of the most tender deer meat, seared to perfection. His mouth is salivating just thinking about it.

      Dekar closes the book and places it on the top of the teetering book tower. He stands and stretches, allows a yawn. Then he wanders up a few more flight of stairs to the ninteenth floor, a level he’s been to hundreds of times, but this time he takes one of the ladders to the darkest corner, where there aren’t any windows. He is still thinking about seared deer meat when he climbs to the top and pulls a thick book from the highest shelf. He blows hard, stirring dust. The particulates fall around him as he descends the ladder, the motes like tiny snowflakes or feather-light glass.

      Why go to this part of the tower? Why grab the ladder and reach for that specific book? These are the sort of questions Dekar doesn’t ask anymore. Like all things in the tower, in his life, in all known existence, the answer to those questions is simple. Whim.

      Distracted, he finds the table he uses on this floor, and there, too, is a tower of books. He sits in his usual spot, curls his feet back under him. He is less bored now, but like an inhale, a breathing in, he knows it will return.

      He opens the book and this time he doesn’t skim. Immediately he knows this one is different, a book he’s never read before. He reads the title: Longback Berserker. He puzzles at the name; it is quite strange, even among the number of strangely named books he’s read since coming to himself within the tower. Like with all the other books, there is no author. He shrugs, his response to most things, turns the page, and begins reading.

      By the end of the first page Dekar is caught. When he reads like this, with his full attention, the words thunder in his ears, but inward, painting the inside of his skull with sound. And his sight, usually bound to the tower—or the forest, or to the words on the page—descends into the words, down and down, and then between the atoms of ink blots on the paper, until the world of the story appears, rising up from the quantum mist.

      And still he falls, through space and high atmosphere, through clouds, this now littlest Dekar forming hands and feet, a torso, a littlest mind. And just as the jelly of this littlest body sets, turning true-solid, he finds footing on the elsewhere sidewalk of this littlest world, half-crowded with people.

      No one notices him appearing there. Dekar looks around to find his bearings. On the street are little boutique shops: a cupcake bakery, a bread shop, a butchery, a flower shop, an antique shop, a bookstore, and at the far end of the street, a fortune teller’s shop. All these buildings are painted purple, almost the same shade as the people walking along the sidewalks.

      As he observes all this, the words he is reading above this place thunder in his ears—

      The truck idled at the stop sign but Estrid Orchid waited to calm her nerves. She told herself again there was nothing to worry about. She would see what he had to say about the Esket Fragment and leave once he’d told her. She doubted he knew as much as he claimed, even if he’d spent half his life marooned on Esket during the war. The Fragment was in a dead language that the Scattered Tribes no longer remembered, even in their stories. However, she’d still have to do her duty as a scholar and talk to the man.

      Once the truck passed and the street was clear of cars, she took one more breath, deciding she was ready. And so, Estrid Orchid crossed the street

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