Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 184 (September 2025)

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 184 of LIGHTSPEED! We're kicking off the month with a new SF short by Kel Coleman: "Last Meal Aboard the Awassa," a space-faring tale about the importance of gratitude and community in the face of adversity. In C.Z. Tacks' "The Girlfriend Experience," we steer into a more cyberpunk-flavored experience. We also have two terrific flash pieces: "The Place I Came To" from Filip Hajdar Drnovsek Zorko and "City of One" by Stephen S. Power. Our original fantasy includes "Apeiron," a new short by Cadwell Turnbull that perfectly captures what it's like to parent a talented and gifted teen . . . but with a magical twist. Isabel J. Kim brings us a beautiful story about sirens, family, and the power of love in "Human Voices." We also have a flash story ("Beginning Before and After The End") from Jake Stein and another ("On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting") from Bogi Takacs.