As we announced mid-month, Fantasy and Lightspeed have a new publisher--and it's me, your humble editor, John Joseph Adams. I officially begin my tenure as publisher with the January 2012 issue, so this is our last issue under the Prime Books banner. 

We do have some fairly major changes in store:

First, we'll be merging Fantasy and Lightspeed. But never fear: We won't be doing away with any of Fantasy's fiction; each issue of the combined magazine will contain four science fiction stories and four fantasy stories. We won't be reducing the number of stories, or replacing any Fantasy content with Lightspeed content; this will be a true merger.

Second, in order to focus more on the fiction side of the magazine, we're going to cut down on our nonfiction. Going forward, we will cease publication of the related nonfiction articles accompanying each story and instead publish only two feature interviews per issue. We will, however, still have our usual assortment of author spotlights.

Third, since we're doubling the amount of fiction in each issue, we're going to raise the price of our ebooks--but not by double: We'll be raising the price to just $3.99. So you'll be getting twice as much fiction, for just a dollar more per issue; plus, from here on out, each ebook edition of Lightspeed will feature exclusive content that you won't find on our website--namely, in addition to the eight short stories you'll also find our website, each ebook issue will now feature a novella-length story. 

And lastly, as we mentioned in the mid-month email, I thought now would be a good time to do a reader survey, to let us get a better idea of who you all are, what you enjoy most about our content, and how you tend to access it, along with general demographic information. If you'd like to participate-and enter for a chance to win a free subscription to Lightspeed from Weightless Books--go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/lightspeed-fantasy-2011-survey and fill it out. It should only take about five to ten minutes of your time. The survey ends December 15, 2011, so don't delay-and thanks in advance!

So! Exciting times. We'll be keeping the www.fantasy-magazine.com website up as an archive, but all future Fantasy content will appear as part of Lightspeed, at www.lightspeedmagazine.com, so be sure to update your bookmarks and RSS feeds!

Now that we've got all that out of the way, here's what we've got on tap this month:

Vylar Kaftan returns to Lightspeed with "The Sighted Watchmaker," a story about a being coming face-to-face with her race's long-dead creator. Next, In "After the Days of Dead-eye 'Dee," author Pat Cadigan introduces us to a tough old woman who has been pushed aside one time too many, and the alien who dares to approach her. Andrew Penn Romine makes his professional debut with "The Parting Glass," in which an aging Augment gets the chance of a lifetime--but the price might be more than advertised when he considers the source, and finally, Arthur C. Clarke gives us the story of Captain Robert Singh, tasked with averting world-wide disaster from an asteroid strike in "The Hammer of God."