Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 135 (August 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 issue 135 of LIGHTSPEED! This month's science fiction originals include a cyberpunk-flavored tale of mind control from Andrea Chapela (translated by Emma Torzs): "Now You Feel It." If you are a fan of Oliver Twist (or if you grew up in the 1980s, Oliver and Company), then our SF short story "Anything Short of Death Is Survivable" (by David Anaxagoras) will leave you saying "Please sir. I want some more . . . dangerous space salvage missions and mistreated orphans." Nelly Geraldine Garcia Rosas takes you on a trip to Titan in her flash piece "Before the Haze Devours You." Our reprint this month is from Maurice Broaddus ("City of Refuge"). Our first full-length fantasy short (and at 10,000 words, this one's a novelette) is "Now You See Me" by Justin C. Key-the story of an art exhibit with powerful consequences. In "The Tale of Jaja and Canti," Tobi Ogundirian brings us the story of a boy created by magic and the mother he's always yearned to find. Our flash story this month is the very touching "My Sister Is a Scorpion" from Isabel Canas. And our fantasy reprint is Sheree Renee Thomas's "Ancestries." All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt from THE ALL-CONSUMING WORLD by Cassandra Khaw from Erewhon Books.