Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 124 (September 2020)

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 124th issue! Around here, we love giant robots, but our first SF original this month-"The Author's Wife vs. the Giant Robot," by Adam-Troy Castro-made us think twice about living in the shadow of one. Sunny Moraine's new short ("Note to Self") also wrestles with the ramifications of size, but this story tackles a much, much smaller topic: quantum mechanics. Our SF reprints include the second installment of Caroline M. Yoachim's Shadow Prisons series ("Shadow Prisons of the Mind") and "Machine Learning" by Hugh Howey. Our original fantasy shorts include another delightful trip to Alexander Weinstein's Eighth Continent: "Destinations of Waiting." Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam gives us a heroine with a difficult heritage and a supportive girlfriend in her new story "Entanglement." Our fantasy reprints are from L.D. Lewis ("Moses") and Karen Joy Fowler ("Persephone of the Crows"). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. Our feature interview is with Mark Oshiro. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt from bestselling author Christopher Paolini's new novel, TO SLEEP IN A SEA OF STARS.