Fantasy Archives - Page 64 of 67 - Lightspeed Magazine

Lightspeed Magazine
Nightmare Magazine

Fantasy Fiction

Breaking the Frame

The photograph is of a woman at the center of a forest. She is slim and tall and pale as the birches she stands among. The shadows turn her ribs and spine into branches, into knots in the wood. Around her arms, the peeling white bark of the birches, curved in bracelets. Between her thighs, the hair is dense and springy like moss. She is turning into a tree.

In Aug. 2012 (Issue 27)

Love Might Be Too Strong a Word

by Charlie Jane Anders

Author spotlight

Here’s how I remember it: A touch shocked me. I was reaching for a flash-seared bog-oyster, and then a fingertip, softer than I’d ever felt, brushed my knuckle. The softness startled me so much, it took me a moment to realize the hand had seven fingers, three more than mine.

In Aug. 2012 (Issue 27)

Cotillion

by Delia Sherman

Author spotlight

Celia Townsend’s mother brought up the subject of debutante balls for the first time in June. It was the day after graduation, and they were discussing when Celia would have to be home from Maine at the end of the summer to get ready for her freshman year at Vassar.

In Aug. 2012 (Issue 27)

A Moment Before It Struck

by Linda Nagata

Author spotlight

He felt death coming a moment before it struck. In the lingering gray twilight, Smoke lay on his bedding, eyes not quite closed and mind adrift, only half-aware of the sounds of the encampment around him: steel on whetstone, the rattle of dice, a soft song, and loud bragging.

In Aug. 2012 (Issue 27)

The Necromancer in Love

by Wil McCarthy

Author spotlight

The young necromancer is a blight on the social landscape, because when his sweetheart meets with an untimely interruption of service (don’t they all? don’t they always?), he’s bound to do something the rest of us regret.

In Aug. 2012 (Issue 27)

Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream

by Maria Dahvana Headley

Author spotlight

In the middle of the maze, there’s always a monster. If there were no monster, people would happily set up house where it’s warm and windowless and comfortable. The monster is required. The monster is a real estate disclosure.

In July 2012 (Issue 26)

Gordon, the Self-made Cat

by Peter S. Beagle

Author spotlight

Once upon a time, to a family of house mice there was born a son named Gordon. He looked very much like his father and mother and all his brothers and sisters, who were gray and had bright, twitchy, black eyes, but what went on inside Gordon was very different from what went on inside the rest of his family.

In July 2012 (Issue 26)

Singing of Mount Abora

by Theodora Goss

Author spotlight

A hundred years ago, the blind instrument-maker known as Alem Das, or Alem the Master, made a dulcimer whose sound was sweeter, more passionate, and more filled with longing than any instrument that had ever been made.

In July 2012 (Issue 26)

Ghost River Red

by Aidan Doyle

Author spotlight

Akamiko arrived three days before the anniversary of the Lady of All Colors’ death. The village held a small market filled with stalls selling fish and vegetables, and a bathhouse stood by the river. It was hard to imagine the Lady of All Colors growing up here.

In July 2012 (Issue 26)