Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 168 (May 2024)

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 168 of LIGHTSPEED! One of the things speculative fiction does best is exploring different kinds of minds via the use of unusual story structures. Well, we're kicking off this issue with a powerful story that nearly breaks the very nature of reading! "We Will Teach You How To Read | We Will Teach You How To Read" by Caroline M. Yoachim tells the story of an alien culture in a fresh, exciting format. Luckily for you, we've included instructions to help you understand every fantastic page. We also have a new original science fiction story by Nisi Shawl: "Over a Long Time Ago," a dark tale of unhappy relationships and space exploration. Stephen Geigen-Miller also delves into space exploration in his flash piece "The Last Thing They See Is Laika." Ash Howell's story of gene manipulation "Chaos Theory" joins our flash SF. Ben Peek returns to the Ministry of Saturn in his dark fantasy story "Exit Interview." P H Lee explores the nature of tricksters in their alternate history tale "Richard Nixon and the Princess of Crows." We also have a flash story ("Done Deal") from Rory Harper, and another ("And the Dreams That You Dare to Dream") from Marissa Lingen. In nonfiction, we have a terrific array of book reviews, and of course, our spotlight interviewers have sat down with our authors to get more insight into their stories.