Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 139 (December 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 139 of LIGHTSPEED! Our first fantasy story this month is a tale of gods, bravery, and new beginnings from Donyae Coles: "When Sri Left the Ruined City"-perfect for all of us thinking about the new goals and challenges in our future. If you're a crafter, then this time of year can be exhausting. You'll really appreciate how one gift goes awry in Carrie Vaughn's newest story, "Entanglement, or How I Failed to Knit a Sweater for My Boyfriend." We also have a beautiful and romantic piece of flash fiction ("Writing You") from Sharang Biswas. Our fantasy reprint this month is by E. Lily Yu ("Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire"). Our first full-length SF story, Filip Hajdar Drnovsek Zorko's "Red Is Our Country" follows the footsteps of intrepid Martian explorers-from a unique point of view. Aimee Ogden gives us an elegiac tale of far-future tourism in "Ten Things to See Before the World Burns." And just for fun, we have two SF stories about fairy tales! That's right-fairy tales aren't just for fantasy these days. We think you'll enjoy "Fairy Tale," a new flash piecefrom Adam-Troy Castro, as well as "Fairy Tales for Robots" by Sofia Samatar (our SF reprint). We also have book reviews, spotlight interviews with our authors, and of course, for our e-readers, an excerpt from a new novel: THE UNDERTAKERS by Nicole Glover.