Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 125 (October 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 125th issue! Do you love power armor? Do you love giant robots? Do you love people in power armor fighting giant robots? Well then, we've got you covered! Todd McAulty's newest short story ("The Ambient Intelligence") is here to meet all your power armor vs. robot needs. Our other new short SF is from Jenny Rae Rappaport: "Everything and Nothing," a story of love and futuristic warfare. We also have the next installment of Caroline M. Yoachim's Shadow Prisons series ("The Shadow Prisoner's Dilemma") and a classic from Ken Liu ("Byzantine Empathy"). Our first piece of original fantasy this month ("The Vampire of Kovacspeter") is the tale of a level-headed vampire hunter written by P H Lee. Naomi Kanakia tells us about how video games can change a life in her new story "Everquest." We also have fantasy reprints by Stephanie Malia Morris ("Forty Acres and a Mule") and Minsoo Kang ("The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations"). 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 CL Polk. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt from Cory Doctorow's new novel, ATTACK SURFACE.