Covering Covers & Contents: Lightspeed: Year One - John Joseph Adams (ed.)

Like good fiction but hate eReading? What the hell is wrong with you? You're in luck!

 

 

Prime Books is collecting the first twelve issues of Lightspeed in a handsomely covered and bug-splatteringly physical edition. Lightspeed, if you're not aware, is an online-only monthly magazine that publishes a mix of original and classic reprint science fiction shorts. In its first year of publication, Lightspeed produced 4 genre award nominees in 2010, all of which are included in the Year One collection.

 

Here's the full list of contents:

• Introduction – John Joseph Adams
• June 2010, Issue One
• I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno – Vylar Kaftan (Nebula Award Nominee)
• The Cassandra Project – Jack McDevitt
• Cats in Victory – David Barr Kirtley
• Amaryllis – Carrie Vaughn (Hugo Award Nominee)
• July 2010, Issue Two
• No Time Like the Present – Carol Emshwiller
• Manumission – Tobias S. Buckell
• The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball – Genevieve Valentine
• ...For a Single Yesterday – George R. R. Martin
• August 2010, Issue Three
• How to Become a Mars Overlord – Catherynne M. Valente
• Patient Zero – Tananarive Due
• Arvies – Adam-Troy Castro (Nebula Award Nominee)
• More Than the Sum of His Parts – Joe Haldeman
• September 2010, Issue Four
• Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain – Yoon Ha Lee (Sturgeon Award Nominee)
• The Long Chase – Geoffrey A. Landis
• Amid the Words of War – Cat Rambo
• Travelers – Robert Silverberg
• October 2010, Issue Five (SF-Horror Hybrids Issue)
• Hindsight – Sarah Langan
• Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back – Joe R. Lansdale
• The Taste of Starlight – John R. Fultz
• Beachworld – Stephen King
• November 2010, Issue Six
• Standard Loneliness Package – Charles Yu
• Faces in Revolving Souls – Caitlin R. Kiernan
• Hwang's Billion Brilliant Daughters – Alice Sola Kim
• Ej-Es – Nancy Kress
• December 2010, Issue Seven
• In-Fall – Ted Kosmatka
• The Observer – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Jenny's Sick – David Tallerman
• The Silence of the Asonu – Ursula K. Le Guin
• January 2011, Issue Eight
• Postings from an Amorous Tomorrow – Corey Mariani
• Cucumber Gravy – Susan Palwick
• Black Fire – Tanith Lee
• The Elephants of Poznan – Orson Scott Card
• February 2011, Issue Nine
• Long Enough And Just So Long – Cat Rambo
• The Passenger – Julie E. Czerneda
• Simulacrum – Ken Liu
• Breakaway, Backdown – James Patrick Kelly
• March 2011, Issue Ten
• Saying the Names – Maggie Clark
• Gossamer – Stephen Baxter
• Spider the Artist – Nnedi Okorafor
• Woman Leaves Room – Robert Reed
• April 2011, Issue Eleven
• All That Touches the Air – An Owomoyela
• Maneki Neko – Bruce Sterling
• Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son – Tom Crosshill
• Velvet Fields – Anne McCaffrey
• May 2011, Issue Twelve
• The Harrowers – Eric Gregory
• Bibi From Jupiter – Tessa Mellas
• Eliot Wrote – Nancy Kress
• Scales – Alastair Reynolds

That's 48 stories for less than 15 bucks. A quarter per short works for me. While there's no denying the quality of the reprinted material from King, Le Guin, Card, and GRRM, I'm equally excited by the newer authors. John Joseph Adams is one of the premiere genre anthology editors working today, and he does a great job recognizing upcoming and underread talent of the likes of Ted Kosmatka, Nnedi Okorafor, Charles Yu, Alice Sola Kim, and Genevieve Valentine.

 

I'm not sure when this one is out, but I'll be sure to pick it up when it arrives. In the mean time, consider buying an issue or two of Lightspeed to keep the good stuff coming.