Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 189 (February 2026)

We have original science fiction by Megan Chee (“Death Echoes Overlapping”) and Deborah L. Davitt (“Sensor Ghosts”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Worldbuilder” from Phoenix Alexander and “Warren’s Tentacle” by Susan Palwick. Plus, we have original fantasy by Alexander Weinstein (“Dream Destinations (From the Lost Traveler’s Tour Guide)”) and Modupeoluwa Shelle (“A Handbook to Spirit-Hunting”).We also have a flash story (“Six Sides of a Fairy Tale”) from Audrey Zhou, and another (“The Salt and the Cure”) from Rukman Ragas. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

Cover art by Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure)

Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 189 (February 2026)

Editorial

Editorial: February 2026

by John Joseph Adams

Be sure to check out the editorial for a rundown of this month’s content and for all of John Joseph Adams’s media and book recommendations!

Publishes Online on 2/5

Science Fiction

Death Echoes Overlapping

by Megan Chee

On the necropolis space station of the Tau Andromeda planetary system, the keepers of the tomb attended to the dead and the dying. They cleansed, prepared, and prayed over the bodies. They performed the last rites, paying intricate attention to the customs of each person’s native community. This was the most sacred of tasks. Carelessness or disrespect was not tolerated; just one mistake meant immediate dismissal.

Publishes Online on 2/5

Fantasy

Six Sides of a Fairy Tale

by Audrey Zhou

1. KING Once upon a time there was a king who had a daughter that he loved very much, and when she disappeared, he called you to the throne room and requested your services. “Tell me what happened to her,” he said. It had been three days since the Crown Princess Jieqiong had last been […]

Publishes Online on 2/5

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Megan Chee

by Phoebe Barton

I got the idea to write a story about several different alien planets in their last few days of existence before the apocalypse. I thought it would be interesting to explore snapshots of these alien societies in their final days. Eventually, I got the idea to connect them through some kind of psychic anomaly that brings them together in their moment of death.

Publishes Online on 2/5

Science Fiction

The Worldbuilder

by Phoenix Alexander

The settlement was barely two weeks old, and so her own habitation husk had to serve as an ER room for the man who was carried in from the planet’s surface, screaming and blue-lipped with trauma shock. “What happened?” The doctor listened as the man’s coworker explained how he had been guiding a transportation eelcraft when something huge and obscure rose from the river, crushed him against the bank, and made off.

Publishes Online on 2/12

Fantasy

Dream Destinations (From the Lost Traveler’s Tour Guide)

by Alexander Weinstein

Your guidebook writers acknowledge that there’s been a great deal of debate about how exactly an eighth continent appeared in our midst. Amid some circles, there’s talk of the landmass as an intergalactic spaceship, its presence entering our reality like a sparrow flying through an open window. There are speculations that it rose from the […]

Publishes Online on 2/12

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Alexander Weinstein

by Erik Grove

One of the central questions I’ve been exploring within these destinations is the idea of dreams, both literal and figurative. There’s a way we live in a dreamworld constantly—both from the daydreams we have about the future (locations we dream of moving to, hopes we have for travels, our wishes for better professions or love lives) to the more mystical experiences of wondering whether, as the Buddhists claim, this world is indeed an illusion.

Publishes Online on 2/12

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Best Weird Fiction of the Year Volume One by Michael Kelly, ed.

by Arley Sorg

If you’re looking for a gorgeously curated selection of stories, Arley Sorg suggests you check out The Best Weird Fiction of the Year Volume One edited by Michael Kelly.

Publishes Online on 2/12

Science Fiction

Sensor Ghosts

by Deborah L. Davitt

Today, the hydrocarbon clouds of Titan had rolled back over Kraken Mare, rendering the waves of the methane sea impossibly blue as they lapped at the shore, gradually eroding sharp spires of ice into rounded pebbles. Beatriu Cardona shivered despite the warmth of the rover’s interior as the vehicle plowed along the frigid shore, tanklike treads crushing the ice sand into chevron-shaped tracks.

Publishes Online on 2/19

Fantasy

The Salt and the Cure

by Rukman Ragas

The days that followed the godkilling were rife with confusion. The congregation couldn’t come to an agreement: The greatest prophecy of our religion, where our god’s eternal death gives us an eternal home, had come to pass, yet there were no heavenly steps toward a warm hollow or a place to rest our souls.

Publishes Online on 2/19

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Deborah L. Davitt

by Robin Jeffrey

I absolutely love Titan as setting. A few years ago, I wrote a story called “The Djinn of Titan’s Dunes” (Cossmass Infinities #2, May 1, 2020, for anyone interested) in which a pair of researchers stationed on the moon, well, one thinks he’s found life, and he wants to protect it from a grabby Earth.

Publishes Online on 2/19

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key

by Melissa A Watkins

Reviewer Melissa A. Watkins recommends The Hospital at the End of the World for fans of There Is No Antimemetics Division and All That We See or Seem.

Publishes Online on 2/19

Science Fiction

Warren’s Tentacle

by Susan Palwick

The AI surgical bots that reconstruct Warren after the accident have no clearer a concept of human anatomy than AI has ever had. He emerges from anesthesia to discover, in stages, two extra fingers on his right hand, a tentacle emerging from the left side of his ribcage, and a third eye, gummed shut by mucus, in the back of his head. Also, one of his feet is backwards.

Publishes Online on 2/26

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Susan Palwick

by Delia Cullity

The inspiration is loosely from our increasing dependence on technology, especially in the setting of biological catastrophe—think about the surge in Zoom usage during Covid—but also from just how bizarre AI responses tend to be.

Publishes Online on 2/26

Fantasy

A Handbook to Spirit-Hunting

by Modupeoluwa Shelle

‎ If you are reading this book then you must have either completed your might and magic training or succeeded in killing a spirit hunter and found their copy a spoil (no spirit hunter in their right mind will hand you this book under any circumstances). But whatever means you’ve acquired it, it will guide you into hunting, capturing or, in the worst case scenario, running when you come across any of these spirits.

Publishes Online on 2/26

Nonfiction

Book Review: Reliquary by Hannah Whitten

by Chris Kluwe

Reviewer Chris Kluwe recommends the underworld horrors in Hannah Whitten’s Reliquary.

Publishes Online on 2/26