Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Fiction

Science Fiction

The Last Thing They See Is Laika

by Stephen Geigen-Miller

So much for Shapcott’s harbinger of astronautical doom. He hasn’t seen her at all. Or anyone, obviously. There was a lot of chatter just after the accident—Mission Control and half the experts on the planet trying to find a solution, any solution. It’s quiet now. They’ve figured out what he knew from the moment it happened. It’s all down to physics, as usual. Force, kinetic energy, and gravity. The debris that made an unannounced appearance at his EVA.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Fantasy

Exit Interview

by Ben Peek

Author spotlight

I joined The Ministry in 2009. Before that, I worked in grocery stores, pawn shops, and liquor stores. It was shift work, shit work, all of it minimum wage. I lived in Jasper, in East Texas, and I took what I could get. My husband was a mechanic. We met when we were young, when we were in school, and we married shortly after.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Science Fiction

We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read

by Caroline M. Yoachim

Author spotlight

This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. The first time you get our message, you only / find one thread. It mimics your language in / its simplest form, a single strand of words / laid end to end. You will have to work hard if / you want to understand us properly. You / must learn to hold more than one thread of / language simultaneously in your mind.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Fantasy

Done Deal

by Rory Harper

As with Robert Johnson, a lot of people who believed in the devil also believed that Jack Malagan had made a deal with him. Jack was a six-string prodigy, getting pulled onstage by the likes of Grohl and Kravitz by the time he was twelve. He could swing the blues as hard as Bonamassa, but it was just the foundation for his love for rock.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Science Fiction

Limping Toward Sunrise

by Rich Larson

Lester swung his chainsaw, mowing a path through the mob of needle-toothed quantum parasites, while Kit batted clean-up with her Louisville Slugger. Across the plain of dark rock, their destination: a whirling, gnashing portal that could doom all humanity. It wasn’t ideal timing for an awkward conversation, but it never was.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Fantasy

Travelers’ Tales from the Ends of the World

by Vandana Singh

Author spotlight

Welcome, Stranger! This is a story for you, you who wait for my words to fall into your ear, so that we can share being and become more than we are alone. The tales I have to tell today are woven into this fabric that unrolls before you as I work my Loom. As to who or what I am, you have the right to ask, but I won’t tell you as yet. To be honest, I am not quite sure, myself.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Science Fiction

Mother’s Day, After Everything

by Susan Palwick

Author spotlight

All of us remember what Mother’s Day was like before we became sterile: flowers and candy for living mothers and tears for dead ones and anger at bad ones, and women who couldn’t be mothers or who’d lost children marinating in grief, and nobody really profiting from any of it except Hallmark and the restaurants and florists.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Fantasy

Salemo

by David Marino

There is a city called Salemo. Salemo sits atop a cliffside at the edge of a sea. The water of that sea is always clearest blue, except when it is clearest green, or clearest purple. The colors change with the tides, but the waves are always safe to swim in, with schools of luminescent fish dashing between the coral reefs. In Salemo, you can spend your days lying on its pristine beaches.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Science Fiction

Under a Star, Bright as Morning

by David Anaxagoras

Jo drives urgently as they race toward the star, not sure how far to go, racing because the baby is coming tonight, now, and He (a He, of course) is supposed to be born under the star, that’s how the story goes. The story, the new story and the old, begins with a visitor, a messenger. Molly had just logged out for the day when the monk knocked on her door.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Fantasy

How to Know Your Father Is a God

by Modupeoluwa Shelle

Author spotlight

I know you’ve been following me since I left school, boarded the train, and took to the alley. Why didn’t I run? I’m not scared of you anymore. Right now, I’m scared for you. Be careful the way you drag me into a corner, shove me against the wall, dig your puny fists into my belly, and search me for valuables if you do not want to incur the wrath of my father.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

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