Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 156 (May 2023)

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 156 of LIGHTSPEED! In 2016, we ran the story "Wednesday's Story" by Wole Talabi; we're delighted to return to the magical realm of the Days siblings with a new story from Wole: "Saturday's Song." We also have a lovely new original short from Kat Howard ("One Heart, Lost and Found") set on an extremely fascinating train. Our fantasy flash stories include "The Sword, the Butterfly, and the Pearl" by Deborah L. Davitt and "The Belfry Keeper" by S.L. Harris. For our science fiction shorts, in "She Blooms and the World is Changed" Izzy Wasserstein takes us to a new planet filled with risks-and occupied by a family dealing with these dangers. Timothy Mudie's new novelette ("Blood for a Stranger") wrestles with morality and cybernetic intelligence. We also have two terrific flash pieces: "Moons We Can Circumnavigate in One Day, or the Space Probe Love Story" from Natalia Theodoridou and "When Shiva Shattered the Time-Stream" by Sharang Biswas. On the nonfiction front, our book review team offers up some exciting new reads, and our author spotlight editor has dug deeper into our writers' processes and inspirations. Plus we have an excerpt from Cory Doctorow's new novel RED TEAM BLUES for our ebook readers.