Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 148 (September 2022)

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 148 of LIGHTSPEED! Our first SF story of the month might be one of our most timely. From writer MKRNYILGLD comes "The CRISPR Cookbook: A guide to biohacking your own abortion in a post-Roe world," and the title does a great job describing it. Be sure not to miss it. Our flash SF this month, "Civilian Assumptions," comes from Dominique Dickey, while our second piece of full-length SF is a wildly delightful story of bounty hunters, space travel, and strawberry lip gloss. Yes: lip gloss. Please enjoy R J Theodore's "The Application of Strawberry Lip Gloss in a Low-Gravity Environment." Our SF reprint this month is "Eminence," by Karl Schroeder. Jenny Rae Rappaport returns with "The Inheritance of Dust and Leather," a flash fantasy story that's a tale as old as time (or at least libraries). Kristina Ten's story of seals and bad marriages, "The Queen of the Earless Seals of Lake Baikal," will touch your heart, as will Martin Cahill's magical "Her Five Farewells." Our fantasy reprint is "The Sister City," by Cody Goodfellow. Our review teams have been busy reading great new books, and our author spotlight interviewer has put together fascinating questions for our writers. If you're one of our ebook readers, you'll enjoy an excerpt from DESERT CREATURES, a new novel by Kay Chronister.