Fantasy Archives - Page 60 of 69 - Lightspeed Magazine

Fantasy Fiction

There are flea markets all across Florida, and this was not the worst of them. It had once been an aircraft hangar, but the local airport had closed. There were a hundred traders there, behind their metal tables, most of them selling counterfeit merchandise: sunglasses or watches or bags or belts. There was an African family selling carved wooden animals, and behind them a loud, blowsy woman named (I cannot forget the name) Charity Parrot sold coverless paperback books, and old pulp magazines, the paper browned and crumbling, and beside her, in the corner, a Mexican woman whose name I never knew sold film posters and curling film stills.

In Oct. 2013 (Issue 41)

The Master Conjurer

by Charlie Jane Anders

Author spotlight

Peter did a magic spell, and it worked fine. With no unintended consequences, and no weird side effects. Two days later, he was on the front page of the local newspaper: “The Miracle Conjurer.” Some blogs picked it up, and soon enough he was getting visits from CNN and MSNBC, and his local NPR station kept wanting to put him on. News crews were standing and talking in front of his house.

In Oct. 2013 (Issue 41)

The Five Deaths of Marvin Dimitri

by Dylan Otto Krider

Author spotlight

I first met Marvin several years ago, but you don’t have to know Marvin to know his story. That’s the sort of thing that’s just understood, that comes from living in Beaumont, Texas, where Marvin lived most all of his lives.

In Oct. 2013 (Issue 41)

Augusta Prima

by Karin Tidbeck

Author spotlight

Augusta stood in the middle of the lawn with the croquet club in a two-handed grasp. She had been offered the honor of opening the game. Mnemosyne’s prized croquet balls were carved from bone, with inlaid enamel and gold. The ball at Augusta’s feet stared up at her with eyes of bright blue porcelain.

In Oct. 2013 (Issue 41)

And Then Some

by Matthew Hughes

Author spotlight

Erm Kaslo came to Cheddle on the Adelaine, a tramp freighter that didn’t mind taking passengers who didn’t mind the quality of the accommodations. He could have come on a liner, but he preferred, when working, to make his entrances unnoticed.

In Sep. 2013 (Issue 40)

Bellweather

by Marc Laidlaw

Author spotlight

They had struggled for days through a wasteland of broken rock, high in the mountains, on their way through a pass that maps had indicated would take them to a country of promise. The first of the rocks were chipped and quarried, and showed signs of having been worked by artisans as much as by nature. But after a time, the unfashioned stone gave way to broken figures. The general impression was that a nation of statues, its entire populace, had been carried to the heavens and then dropped, so that all were shattered. Fractured heads and torsos, truncated limbs, toes and fingers of every size, from gnomic to gigantic, lay strewn from peak to peak, as if spread across the high mountain valleys by glacial action.

In Sep. 2013 (Issue 40)

Homecoming

by Seanan McGuire

Author spotlight

The locker room is always tense before a game. Alisa is trying to get her uniform to stay in place, counting more on safety pins and prayer than she probably should, and Birdie—true to her name—keeps whistling, which is probably going to get her slapped if she doesn’t stop soon. Cram twenty girls from opposing squads into one small space and tensions are going to flare.

In Sep. 2013 (Issue 40)

Suzanne Delage

by Gene Wolfe

As I was reading last night—reading a book, I should explain, which was otherwise merely commonplace; one of those somewhat political, somewhat philosophical, somewhat historical books which can now be bought by the pound each month—I was struck by a certain remark of the author’s.

In Sep. 2013 (Issue 40)

Brisneyland by Night

by Angela Slatter

Author spotlight

“How many kids now?” I asked. “Twenty-five we can identify for sure. But that’s out of a couple of hundred a week. Not all those are ours.” “Don’t say ours, Bela. They’re nothing to do with me.” I looked out the window. My reflection stared back. Beyond that I watched the night speed past. I should have been at my next-door neighbour’s eighth birthday party, pretending I didn’t like children; I shouldn’t have been here.

In Aug. 2013 (Issue 39)

Breathless in the Deep

by Cory Skerry

Author spotlight

When Jantz spotted a black skeleton jutting up above the water, at first she thought it was just a tide-battered tree, but before long she could make out the shredded ropes and scraps of sail. The wooden bones were the charred yardarms of a sunken ship.

In Aug. 2013 (Issue 39)