Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 147 (August 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 147 of LIGHTSPEED! Our first piece of science fiction, "My Future Self, Refused," asks a classic question: If you met your future self, would you be able to trust your own advice? Dont miss this time-traveling tale from Adam-Troy Castro. New to our pages is writer Ruben Reyes, Jr, whose story "SyncALife" is about a service promising to ease the loss of a family members death. Its a powerful mix of technology, familial trauma, and the poetry of war. Our flash SF piece is a tale of inadvertent teleportation: "The Disappearing Dream Engineer," by Rati Mehrotra. Our SF reprint is from Mary Anne Mohanraj: "Among the Marithei." As for our fantasy offerings, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor returns to bring you a touching new short, "So, You Married Your Arch Nemesis . . . Again" about superheroes and the legacy of tragic endings in queer fiction. Tobi Ogundiran carves an enchanting tale of heartbreak and imperialism in his short "The Clockmaker and His Daughter." Julianna Baggott blends elements of The Stepford Wives into the fantastic in her flash story, "Welcome to Oxhead." And of course were delighted to reprint Malinda Los story "Red." The nonfiction department has brought us our regular array of spotlight interviews with our authors and our book reviewers have hunted down some terrific new reads. Our ebook readers will enjoy an excerpt from THE BOOK EATERS, a new novel by Sunyi Dean.