Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 186 (November 2025)

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 186 of LIGHTSPEED! Both of the SF short stories this month blend humor with sharp questions about technology. Our first short is "Elegy for Zephyr One" by Gene Doucette, in which a mega-corporation tries out a dangerous Turing test on a spaceship. Joel W.D. Buxton's newest story, "Operation: Grapevine," puts the world's fate in the hands of possibly the world's most boring man, to hilarious effect. We also have two terrific flash pieces: "How to Set Up Your Mourning Robot" from Angela Liu and "Visible Damage" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Our original fantasy kicks off with a short by Lisa M. Bradley, "In the Zone," the story of an artist with a surprising power to fight injustice-and the psychic weight of that gift. Tina S. Zhu's new short ("How to Build a Homecoming Queen: A Guide by a Bad Asian Girl") tells the tale of a teenage girl whose magical double proves to be the perfect daughter, sister, and robotics team captain. But what happens when creator and creation wind up having different goals? Our fantasy flash stories include "Beneath the Umdlebe Tree; or, A Vegetable Love Story" by Modupeoluwa Shelle and "The Cold Burning Light of Her" by Sam W. Pisciotta.