Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 172 (September 2024)

LIGHTSPEED is a digital 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 issue 172 of LIGHTSPEED! Here at Lightspeed HQ, we're not afraid to admit we love great TV. That's why we can totally empathize with the narrator of our first SF short story this month, "Reconstructing 'The Goldenrod Conspiracy,' Edina Room, Saturday 2:30-3:30," written by Gabriela Santiago-it's all about a missing episode of a favorite classic SF TV show, and the fans who are trying to solve the mystery around its disappearance. Our second SF short story, "Two Motes in the Zeugma Dark" by Sagan Yee, also features a television staple: the mecha pilot turned superstar. Of course, since this piece is running in Lightspeed, you can bet things don't unfold quite the way they would on the small screen. Our SF flash includes "GaaS" from Meg Elison and "The Mote in Bird's Eye; or, Note Attached to a Frozen Corpse Retrieved from Deep Space" by Jon Lasser. Our fantasy shorts include a story of manipulation and apocalypse from Osahon Ize-Iyamu: "We the People Excluding I"-which is all about what we'll endure to save the people we love. Jae Steinbacher, however, delves into what we do to the people we stop loving, in their story of magical accident: "The Ex Hex." We also have a flash story ("The Terrible Secret of The Immortal Bards") from Adam-Troy Castro, and another ("A Superior Knot") from Ash Huang.