Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 129 (February 2021)

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 LIGHTSPEED's 129th issue! Can you mix hard science and fairy tales? This month Phoebe Barton does just that in the very touching "The Mathematics of Fairyland." Writing duo Keith Brooke and Eric Brown return to our pages in a story of one life split between two different worlds: "Me Two." We also have SF reprints by Paul Crenshaw ("Bulletproof Tattoos") and Maureen F. McHugh ("Sidewalks"). Our first piece of original fantasy this month is A.T. Greenblatt's "The Memory of a Memory Is a Spirit"-a story of an island filled with magic and wonder. Alexander Weinstein also gives us a magical new locale in the latest installment of his From the Lost Travelers' Tour Guide series. This one is called "Destinations of Beauty." Our fantasy reprints include work from Micah Dean Hicks ("Church of Birds") and Autumn Brown ("Small and Bright"). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, plus our book reviewers have scoured the shelves for some exciting new reads. Our ebook readers will enjoy an excerpt from Evarina Maxwell's new novel WINTER'S ORBIT.