Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

ADVERTISEMENT: Red, White, and Blue ad gif with slides saying: Impeach Trump, Remove Trump, Imprison Trump, and No Kings, No Tyrants

Advertisement

Science Fiction Podcasts

Science Fiction

Cancer

This certifies that HELEN FRANCES LAWRENCE, sex FEMALE was born to JOHN DENISON LAWRENCE and VIRGINIA MATILDA LAWRENCE on SATURDAY at SIX TEN PM, this EIGHTEENTH day of AUGUST, 1990 at the MONTFORT HOSPITAL in OTTAWA, ONTARIO and will die of CANCER.

Science Fiction

Division of Labor

No one said anything, but Sull could tell they were all a little jealous when he lost his arms and legs. The arms went first, the left one during a bath and the right one a few days later, while he was being fed. Then both legs went at once, which was rare, and Sull was proud of it. He was sitting in a marketing meeting with Glenda and Farook when suddenly his legs quivered and then turned into a slightly viscous liquid that ran out of his trousers like toothpaste from a tube. The liquid ran down the drain under the table with a soft slurping sound.

Science Fiction

Alive, Alive Oh

The waves crash onto the blood-red shore, sounding just like the surf on Earth: a dark rumbling full of power. It’s been seventeen years since we left.

Science Fiction

Get a Grip

Here’s how I found out: I was in a bar called Dave’s on East 14th Street. It wasn’t my usual place. I had been dating a woman in Stuyvesant Town. One night after I left, I still wasn’t eager to go home. So on my way I stopped in.

Science Fiction

The Traditional

By your first anniversary, the world’s stopped making paper, and so you can’t give your boyfriend the traditional gift. You never would have anyway, regardless of circumstances. You’re not that kind of girl. You pride yourself on your original sin. It’s the hot you trade in.

Science Fiction

Deep Blood Kettle

They say the sky will fill with dust in a bad way if we don’t do something soon. My teacher Mrs. Sandy says that if the meteor hits, it’ll put up enough dirt to block the sun, and everything will turn cold for a long, long while. When I came home and told Pa about this, he got angry. He called Mrs. Sandy a bad word, said she was teaching us nonsense. I told him the dinosaurs died because of dust in the sky. Pa said there weren’t no such thing as dinosaurs.

Science Fiction

A Love Supreme

Ellie Santos-Smith grabs a clean white coat as spring dawn brightens her worn Oriental rug and streaks with sun her only luxury, a grand piano. She runs a comb through her jet-black hair, cut short because she thinks that makes her look older. Her smooth skin glows with 20-ish health, though she is 47.

Science Fiction

The Sense of the Circle

Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito.

Science Fiction

Let’s Take This Viral

Default hadn’t been down in the nocturns for some time, probably half an orbit, but he had just dissolved the geneshare contract with his now-ex-lover and needed to get completely fucking perforated to take his mind off things. His lift was full of revelers all laughing and widecasting the same synthesized whalesong from Old Old Earth.

Science Fiction

Harry and Marlowe Escape the Mechanical Siege of Paris

Harry looked out the window and thought: At least I saw Paris one more time before it was destroyed in the bombardment.

ADVERTISEMENT: Robot Wizard Zombie Crit! Newsletter (for Lightspeed, Nightmare, and John Joseph Adams' Anthologies)
Discord Wordmark
Keep up with Lightspeed, Nightmare, and John Joseph Adams' anthologies, as well as SF/F news and reviews, discussion of RPGs, and more.

Delivered to your inbox once a week. Subscribers also get a free ebook anthology for signing up.
Join the Lightspeed Discord server to chat and share opinions with fellow Lightspeed readers.

Discord is basically like a cross between a instant messenger and an old-school web forum.

Join to chat about SF/F short stories, books, movies, tv, games, and more!