This anthology collects all 25 original stories from the fourth year of Diabolical Plots, an online magazine of science fiction and fantasy. Manuals for memory tourism, a secret order of monks that tries to use a scriptural technicality to put off the end of the world indefinitely, a friendly nonbinary tank at a science fiction convention, a questionable academic paper published at a university of magic, living fossils awakened when the coal formed of them burns. The stories vary from humo...

IT'LL SOON BE DARKEighteen dark faerie tales lie within these pages.Like the originals, they are. Like those that came before, those that warned of the darkness. Not like modern tales, no. No happy endings in sight.These stories are all new (not re-tellings of old tales) and inspired from folklore from all around the world. They are filled with equal measures of fright and fancy.You see, the fey are different from you and me. They don’t thin...

The thirteenth Tarot card is Death, and he is a symbol not of the end, but of transformation and rebirth. This is the genesis and root of Thirteen: Stories of Transformation. The twenty-eight authors of this collection are voices—new and old—who are not afraid to explore what comes next. Whether it be a life after death, a life without love, a life filled with hunger, or the life shared by a ghost. These are stories of the weird, the mythic, the fantastic, the futuristic, the supe...

LIGHTSPEED is an online 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.This month, we present our special anniversary issue, Women Destroy Science Fiction!, an all-science fiction extravaganza entirely written—and edited!—by women.Gu...

The greatest gift to us is caring. What would the world be like without someone to care for or to care with? Would love survive if we don't care? From the world of twenty-three science fiction and fantasy authors comes a world that can be funny, heartwarming, strange, or sad. Or not what we expect. Recommended by Publishers Weekly.How can a henchman keep up with a mischievous retired supervillain? Can a dog help a hockey player score again? Will an odd cou...

Journey with twenty-one speculative fiction authors through the fractured borders of human migration to examine the dreams, struggles, and triumphs of those who choose—or are forced—to leave home and familiar places.Recommended by Booklist (American Library Association), Library Journal, School Library Journal, Foreword Reviews, and Locus.Migration. A transformation of time, place, and being . . .WHO ARE THE SHADES...

Who does one call, she wondered as she counted them up, to get rid of demons? Is this something an exterminator can handle? Is it even ethical to call an exterminator? They seemed so... substantial. Would Animal Control or the Humane Society be a better bet? Or the Vatican? She’d read that they actually had a department to handle exorcisms, but she wasn’t “possessed” in the usual sense of the word. Maybe “occupied” would be a better term for it. Like a gaggle of geese, or a pride of lions:...

Myths & Magic: In these six short stories by Christie Yant you'll meet a woman ripped out of her own fairy tale; a monk who may have spent his life serving the wrong goddess; the wild witch of the desert, and an unwelcome guest; a child whose Christmas gift could change every Christmas to come; a woman cursed by a suburban troll; and the banished god Agani, whose name must not be spoken. "An elegant pleasure to read." - Fantasy Matters

Guest-edited by longtime Lightspeed assistant editor Christie Yant, Women Destroy Science Fiction! contains eleven original science fiction short stories, four short-story reprints, a novella reprint, and for the first time ever, an array of flash fiction stories.This special issue includesOriginal science fiction by Seanan McGuire, N. K. Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Amal El-Mohtar, Kris Millering, Heather Clitheroe, Rhonda Eikamp, ...

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.George Orwell once wrote of a world where abuse of power begins with an abuse of language and a bastardization of truth. Some of today’s most exciting voices in speculative fiction explore the ramifications of those ideas in Ignorance Is Strength.The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance Is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its...

We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes.In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, that’s the motto of the Firemen who hunted down and burned books wherever they found them. Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.Edited by John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and...

Into the darkness within; or else the light …When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, over a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.Edited by John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant, the Dystopia Triptych is...