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    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 128 (January 2021): Lightspeed Magazine, #128
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 128 (January 2021): Lightspeed Magazine, #128
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 128 (January 2021): Lightspeed Magazine, #128
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    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 128 (January 2021): Lightspeed Magazine, #128

    By John Joseph Adams

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    About this ebook

    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.

     

    Welcome to LIGHTSPEED's 128th issue! We're kicking off the year with an original short by Anjali Sachdeva ("The Incorruptible World"), which asks the big question: If you could design the world to your taste, what would you include, and what would you leave out? And more dangerously: What would you forget? Our other original SF short is an alien tale ("The Memory Plague") from D. Thomas Minton that digs into the nature of identity and memory and the very worth of life. Our SF reprints are from An Owomoyela ("The Hard Spot in the Glacier") and Greg van Eekhout ("On the Fringes of the Fractal"). Our first fantasy original is from Adam-Troy Castro ("Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat") that mixes vicious beasts with a little bit of physics' observer effect.  We also have another original fairy tale from P H Lee, the chilly story of "Frost's Boy"-it will leave you ready for a hot cup of cocoa. Our fantasy reprints are from Maria Dahvana Headley ("The Orange Tree") and Liz Ziemska ("The Mushroom Queen"). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, and our ebook readers will get to see a sneak peek of Greg Bear's new novel, THE UNFINISHED LAND. Our nonfiction department is reorganizing a bit, but you we've got three fantastic book reviews for you to dig into. Hope you enjoy the issue, and see you next month!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdamant Press
    Release dateJan 1, 2021
    ISBN9781393303565
    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 128 (January 2021): Lightspeed Magazine, #128
    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 128 (January 2021) - John Joseph Adams

      sword_rocketLightspeed Magazine

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Issue 128, January 2021

      FROM THE EDITOR

      Editorial: January 2021

      SCIENCE FICTION

      The Incorruptible World

      Anjali Sachdeva

      The Hard Spot in the Glacier

      An Owomoyela

      The Memory Plague

      D. Thomas Minton

      On the Fringes of the Fractal

      Greg van Eekhout

      FANTASY

      The Orange Tree

      Maria Dahvana Headley

      Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat

      Adam-Troy Castro

      The Mushroom Queen

      Liz Ziemska

      Frost’s Boy

      P H Lee

      EXCERPTS

      The Unfinished Land

      Greg Bear

      NONFICTION

      Book Review: Afro Puffs Are the Antennae of the Universe by Zig Zag Claybourne

      LaShawn M. Wanak

      Book Review: Heroes’ Feast: The Official D&D Cookbook

      Chris Kluwe

      Book Review: Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

      Arley Sorg

      AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

      Anjali Sachdeva

      Adam-Troy Castro

      D. Thomas Minton

      P H Lee

      MISCELLANY

      Coming Attractions

      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

      © 2020 Lightspeed Magazine

      Cover by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

      https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com

      From_the_Editor

      Editorial: January 2021

      John Joseph Adams | 250 words

      Welcome to Lightspeed’s 128th issue!

      We’re kicking off the year with an original short by Anjali Sachdeva (The Incorruptible World), which asks the big question: If you could design the world to your taste, what would you include, and what would you leave out? And more dangerously: What would you forget? Our other original SF short is an alien tale (The Memory Plague) from D. Thomas Minton that digs into the nature of identity and memory and the very worth of life. Our SF reprints are from An Owomoyela (The Hard Spot in the Glacier) and Greg van Eekhout (On the Fringes of the Fractal).

      Our first fantasy original is from Adam-Troy Castro (Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat) that mixes vicious beasts with a little bit of physics’ observer effect.  We also have another original fairy tale from P H Lee, the chilly story of Frost’s Boy—it will leave you ready for a hot cup of cocoa. Our fantasy reprints are from Maria Dahvana Headley (The Orange Tree) and Liz Ziemska (The Mushroom Queen).

      All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, and our ebook readers will get to see a sneak peek of Greg Bear’s new novel, The Unfinished Land. Our nonfiction department is reorganizing a bit, but you we’ve got three fantastic book reviews for you to dig into. Hope you enjoy the issue, and see you next month!

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      John Joseph Adams is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of more than thirty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent books include Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Press Start to Play, Loosed Upon the World, and The Apocalypse Triptych. 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 a finalist twelve times) and an eight-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, and is a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. He also served as a judge for the 2015 National Book Award. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.

      Science_Fiction

      The Incorruptible World

      Anjali Sachdeva | 10646 words

      That first autumn it felt as if the whole world had been made for them—which, of course, it had. They walked down the avenue of oaks that reached above their heads like Gothic arches, red leaves drifting lazily down to collect at their feet. Ashwin was pleased as anything and couldn’t say enough about the designers, how it was worth spending more sometimes, how you got what you paid for. Everything was just as he’d imagined it: roseate light, unseasonal butterflies, crisp air with a faint waft of frost in it. To Jade, the place was beautiful without having any special charm; she knew she could have seen the same landscape in a vidroom down the street from their apartment, could’ve had the scent of fog and bonfires pumped in and controlled the temperature from her cuff. But Ash was always a fanatic for authenticity. He didn’t care if the trees looked real if you couldn’t reach out and touch them, crumble the dry leaves in your fingers, scrape your shoulder on their bark with a careless stumble.

      • • • •

      The planet was small, about sixteen kilometers in diameter. Watching from the ship as they slowed for landing, Jade found the way the horizon curled across the little freshwater ocean unsettling. The ocean took up about a third of the planet—blank canvas for later expansion, if they wanted it, Ash said—with a coastline of white-sand beach all around it. The land was divided into three sections: grassland, deciduous forest, and tropical jungle. At their nexus were four city blocks. The city had been Jade’s idea. Nature is not to everyone’s taste, you know, she said, and we might want to have guests some day. She had designed the city herself, and so it was a hodgepodge of the megacities she loved, part Omaha, part Shenzhen, with traces of Mombasa and McMurdosburg and Oslo. In the middle, a single building rose up twenty stories into the air like an obelisk, though it was faced with mimicry panels that kept it blended into the surrounding sky and foliage until you were within the city itself. Most of the floors were empty—for later, she said—but the penthouse had been fitted out with furniture to match their place at home, and from it you could see much of the rest of the world.

      • • • •

      The city was Jade’s only contribution to the whole enterprise. When she and Ashwin had gotten engaged and Ash had decided to purchase the planet as a honeymoon escape, he had asked her to come with him to meet the designers, ostensibly so she could give her input. But it was quickly clear that in this, as in all other aspects of his life, Ash had very specific ideas about what he wanted, and she was mostly there to witness.

      It didn’t matter. The whole thing seemed like a very involved pet project and she was just as happy to let him make the decisions while she dealt with the more practical aspects of their future together, arranging for their partnership paperwork and giving notice at her job; even with the prenup, she’d never have to earn an hourly wage again.

      When she arrived at the orbscapers’ offices for the main design meeting, Ash was already there, poring over maps and artists’ renderings of the proposed terrain. As she entered the room, Jade was struck, as she often was, by how handsome Ash was, in spite of his strange looks. Among his obsessions was a horror of physical reconstitution, and while he didn’t complain about her treatments, he himself refused all but the most basic procedures. He had let his hair turn silver, and his dark brown skin was creased and lined. In part, she was sure, it was a power move, a look that instantly communicated that he could not be bothered to conform to others’ ideas of desirability. But more than that, she found it charming. She saw him every day, and yet she could always find something different in his face.

      As she approached the table, the designer stood up and bowed. He looked to be about twenty-five, just as she was, but who knew; they could do wonders with a complete facial reconstitution these days. He was wearing the loose pants and sleeveless shirt that were practically required for men in business, the look that said, I’m too busy being wildly productive to wear anything more complicated than this.

      I’m Maddoc, he said, shaking her hand and pulling a chair up to the table for her.

      The office was done in a style that seemed tailored for Ash’s interests, all polished stone and biofabric, with a sheet of water running down one wall. Jade wondered if the company didn’t just whip up a new conference room for each of their high-level clients to make them feel comfortable; there was probably a room next door that was all polystericon and mirrored floors with andro-throb remixes pumping through the speakers, designed for someone with more contemporary taste. Ash glanced up and reached for her hand, which she gave him.

      We’re looking at customizations, he said. I’m thinking a temperature range of twenty to twenty-five during the day, maybe down to fifteen or ten at night? Occasional higher and lower points thrown in for variation, maybe some seasonal changes. It would be fun to have seasons, wouldn’t it? Rain a couple of times a week. Do we need the rain?

      Not strictly, no, said Maddoc. The plants need to be watered somehow, of course, but there are a few options. We can use low-moisture plants, which will be fine with a couple of days of rain each month, but then you’re more limited in the variety you can choose. Or we can set it to rain at night, and then do a quick burst of heat in the early morning to dry things out before you start your day. Some people find that really peaceful; ‘rain on the roof’ was actually a favorite sound back in the era of single-family dwellings. But if the rain is going to bother you, we can just install subterranean irrigation, although of course that’s an additional cost.

      Ash looked at Jade, eyebrows raised.

      Rain at night sounds fine, she said. We’re not going to be outdoors at four in the morning, I don’t think.

      But if we did want to . . .

      We can also install a manual override, said Maddoc. If, for example, you had a night or two that you wanted to be out late? You could just shut it off for that night and it would automatically resume the next day.

      Ash nodded. That sounds perfect, he said, but Jade could tell he was thinking of something, judging by the way he kept pursing his lips, as if words were trying to creep out of his mouth. Maddoc seemed to sense it too, because he muted his screen and turned to look at them.

      There really are a lot of different customizing options available, he said. And we’re adding new ones all the time. Did you have anything particular in mind?

      Ash toyed with one of the sleek black pebbles that had been scattered on the table for decoration. Is it possible for the planet to be sterile? he said.

      Jade looked away and closed her eyes for a moment. He couldn’t help himself, she knew.

      Do you mean the plants? Maddoc said. Seedless?

      No, not sexually sterile. I just mean . . . clean. Germless. The whole planet, and everything in it.

      Uh, said Maddoc, I mean, we haven’t done it before, but . . . Well, I’d have to look into the specs for that. It would certainly be very . . .

      Expensive, said Ashwin, speaking the word with the relish of someone with a vast supply of funds.

      Complicated, said Maddoc. And, yes, expensive. I mean, it would be easy enough to make the interior of the buildings sterile, but then of course as soon as you went outside you’d be bringing in bacteria from the environment.

      And we’d need to be decontaminated ourselves, said Ash. But it can be done. They do it for xenonauts traveling to new planets, to avoid the risk of biocontamination. So it can be done.

      I mean every squirrel, every tree. Every ounce of dirt and water, said Maddoc, but his tone was changing. Jade could see he was intrigued by the idea, thrilled by the madness of it.

      Some of that would be quite simple, said Ash. The water, for instance. The air. It’s really the biologicals that are complicated.

      And it wouldn’t work indefinitely. We usually build the planets to be self-sustaining, enough plants to supply oxygen for the number of aerobic organisms, enough water to create a rain cycle, a self-contained sewage plant to recycle waste. But some of that couldn’t be made sterile.

      But for a month? Ash said. It could sustain itself for a month. You could use nanos to replace some of the biological functions that are essential for the short term, and then we’d just arrange some kind of a cleaning service before the next time we occupy it, some kind of re-set.

      Right, right. Something like that.

      Or we could just use some soap, said Jade brightly. She couldn’t deny that she liked spending Ash’s money, but sometimes when he was in the process of making an especially extravagant purchase she found it sickening to contemplate just how little the cost of things meant to him. I hear it’s very effective.

      Both men turned to look at her sharply, as though she’d uttered a slur of some sort. Maddoc collected himself quickly and tried to put on an air of polite interest, but Ash didn’t bother. He frowned at her and turned back to Maddoc.

      As long as we put a proper airlock system in place and nothing unsterile enters the planet when we come and go, it would remain sterile indefinitely, Ash said. The only things that would need to be decontaminated again for future trips would be us, and whatever we brought with us. Clothes and food—easy as anything. We could do that at home.

      Now Maddoc laughed, a burst of wonder and excitement that made Ash smile. It was obvious to Jade that neither of them wanted to be sensible about this. She glanced at her cuff for a moment as though it had vibrated, and got up from the table. Sorry, I’ll just take this quickly, she said, gesturing at the cuff and making her way to the door.

      Ash nodded, and Maddoc managed to force his attention back to her long enough to bow before resuming the conversation. I mean let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll have to talk it over with some of the other designers. I’d like to bounce some ideas off Evelyn, in particular. But I think maybe. Well, let’s see.

      Great, that’s all I ask, Ash said as Jade was closing the door behind her, in the tone that meant he was certain things were going to go his way.

      • • • •

      They started their honeymoon in a little cottage in the forest, at the end of the avenue of trees, a place Ash had designed himself. The house looked like a seed pod made of polished wood, the corners all rounded and the windows and doors graceful curves, like something that might have grown up out of the forest floor all on its own. Aside from the bathroom and kitchen, there was only one room, with a huge bed in the middle and windows on three sides that looked out onto the woods. In the late morning, Ash cooked breakfast from whole food he’d had specially stocked for the trip, and they took a walk through the trees down to a little stream where the water ran as warm as bathwater, and swam in the big pool in the rocks.

      Even Jade had to admit there was something romantic about being the only two people on the planet, and that Ash was more relaxed here. It wasn’t just being immersed in nature scenes out of some other century that pleased him; it was the sterility. To say that he was germaphobic would be putting it mildly. At home he changed the sheets on their bed every day, refused to make love unless they’d both just stepped out of the shower. He had four housekeepers who worked in shifts and followed him discreetly through the apartment, wiping down each room he vacated with disinfectant and turning cleansing UV light wands on everything that couldn’t be scrubbed.

      Ash had grown up in a slum, and though he rarely spoke about it, Jade gathered he had seen some terrible things in his childhood, infections and filth that most people couldn’t imagine. The flesh of his left thigh bore a deep divot surrounded by scar tissue; the one time she’d asked him about it the look of anguish that had crossed his face had frightened her into apologetic silence. So Jade was willing to live with his obsession, to wash her hands twenty times a day and carry sterile-wrapped forks and spoons in her purse for him, because he wouldn’t trust the flatware at even the best restaurants. But it was nice to be able to forgo these things, to live like normal people, even if the place itself was surreal.

      The second morning Ash was up and prowling around the cabin at some ungodly hour, when the windows still showed a deep green twilight and the birds were just starting to sing. Jade could hear him in the kitchen, chopping and measuring, and then the smell of onions frying, enough to draw her out of bed. She stood in the doorway, one foot in the kitchen, and watched him shake the frying pan as he prepared to flip an omelet. He caught

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