Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 174 (November 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 174 of Lightspeed Magazine! This month we've got a serialized SF noir novella wrestling with AI, evil corporations, and weird clones. No, it's not Blade Runner! It's "Antyesti for a Dead Ganesa," the newest work from Lightspeed alum Ashok K. Banker. We think you'll love accompanying Ashok on this gritty trip to a noir, cyberpunk future India. Ebook readers can read it in one gulp; those reading online will have to check it out in two parts spread across two Thursdays. Our SF flash includes "The Oracular Manifestation of Human Consciousness Offers Three Provocative Verbs, Separated by Commas" from Aimee Ogden and "Ancestor Code Error" by Ai Jiang. Our first original fantasy short is "We Will Bring Siege to the Bastion of Sin that Cries Out in Your Prayer" by Hammond Diehl, a story of saints and bones. P H Lee wrestles with the moral complexities of Omelas in their story "The Ones Who Come at Last." We have two great fantasy flash stories, too. Isabel Canas returns to our pages with "Babywings" and Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe brings us "The Last Word."