Welcome to issue seventy-two of Lightspeed!

This month, we have original science fiction by An Owomoyela (“Three Points Masculine”) and Mari Ness (“Deathlight”), along with SF reprints by Haris A. Durrani (“Tethered”) and Tora Greve (“The Philosopher’s Stone”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Seanan McGuire (“The Jaws that Bite, the Claws that Catch”) and Wole Talabi (“Wednesday’s Story”), and fantasy reprints by Tim Pratt (“North Over Empty Space”) and Elizabeth Hand (“Hungerford Bridge”).

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 a reprint of Hugh Howey’s “The Plagiarist” and a new excerpt from Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife, which is out in trade paperback this month, from Vintage Books.

Hugo Award Finalists Announced

We are pleased to announce that Brooke Bolander’s story for Lightspeed, “And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead,” which was previously announced as a Nebula Award finalist, is now also a Hugo Award finalist! Lightspeed is no longer eligible in the semiprozine category (which we won the last two years), but we’re pleased to report that your humble editor has been nominated in the Best Editor, Short Form category. And last but not least, Alyssa Wong—whose story for Nightmare, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” is a finalist for both the Nebula and Stoker—is a finalist this year for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Major congrats to Brooke on the rare achievement of being nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula for the same work, and to Alyssa for netting a coveted Campbell nod in the same year she’s up for the Stoker and Nebula.

Thank you so much to all of you who nominated; you can see a full list of the other finalists at midamericon2.org.

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Finalists Announced

We’re starting to think that “And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Award Nominations” might be a good title for a story about Brooke Bolander, because we’re pleased to report that “Trail of Dead” is also a finalist for the Sturgeon Award! Congrats again to Brooke! As of press time, the Sturgeon Awards website didn’t have the finalists posted, but you can see the full list at Locus Online.

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Well, that’s all there is to report this month. Thanks for reading!