Fiction

Science Fiction

Down in the Dim Kingdoms

The airship’s spotlights played off the vast rocky sides of the shaft that plunged deep into the Earth’s core through the lithosphere and eventually to our destination: the Center of the Earth! I yawned. We fell so slowly, the sides of the shaft several hundred feet away, and it had been a long, boring day of this. There’d been a boy, earlier, that caught my eye. But now he was talking to Bridgette with the French accent and the big chest. Laughing at anything she said like it was the cleverest thing in the entire world. Or below it.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 194 (July 2026)

Fantasy

Waru Waru

by Ruth Joffre

Author spotlight

Abuelita has been feeding me her memories. Yesterday, it was the time she trudged up the mountain carrying a basketful of offerings for Pachamama (flowers, incense, a llama sculpted out of animal fat and adorned with gold leaf) in hopes the Earth Mother would alleviate the drought ruining the harvest. Today, it’s the time she visited Tío Roberto’s farm in Sapecho, how the smell of the cows made her eyes water and how at her uncle’s urging she coaxed one over to her with a big yellow carrot and let it eat out of her hand while she stroked its ears.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 194 (July 2026)

Science Fiction

You, Me, Us

by Oyedotun Damilola Muees

You know you are fucked when you see fragments of the broken radio on the floor. Your damaged ship lay nose caked into the sand, and coupled with your sprained ankle that hums an excruciating pain, and slight concussion on your head—your chances of survival in this unknown territory has now drastically dropped. In your first year as a space cadet, you were taught to remain calm, breathe slowly, and call for help in the event of a crash.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 194 (July 2026)

Fantasy

Ash-Shūrā; or, A Book, a Bowl, a Bag of Coins

by Beesan Odeh

Author spotlight

There once lived a boy who paid for a fortune. Nassim wore carob hair and eyes severe like cardamom. He spent his days scouring the souk for unique trinkets he liked to collect or counting the uneven stones of Jerusalem’s cobbled streets as he passed Al-Aqsa Mosque or picking up groceries for his grandmother. He knew it was best to avoid attention and wise to steer clear of the soldiers clad in olive drab watching from the shadows of their field caps in Al-Quds, walled and on fire.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Science Fiction

The Sharing of Some Familiar Song

by Adam-Troy Castro

The creatures who shared your art with us had to explain many things to make it minimally comprehensible. This by itself made sense. You are who and what you are, and we are who and what we are, and the physical differences between us are profound. We belong to different orders, and this means that our minds are also different, our philosophies are different, our ways of measuring and of comprehending the universe are different.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Fantasy

I Cut Off a Monster’s Arm. AITA?

by Marie Brennan

Look, it’s bad enough that my wife gets cat-called in the street and flashed on the train. There’s a lot of sickos out there who get their jollies by harassing women, and usually I try to shut them down without escalating it to a fight.

But we moved a few months ago to a new place. (I don’t want to say where, but it’s in Ishikawa Prefecture.) Last week my wife went to the toilet one night—we have the traditional kind, rather than a Western-style seat—and a moment later I heard this godawful shriek.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Science Fiction

The Overview Initiative

by David Marino

Author spotlight

We’ll skip ahead. Say eight minutes in, so I’m not wasting your time. You’re in your chair, strapped tight, taking around eight Gs. Like this, they wouldn’t even feel that bad, all the force coming from front to back, pressing you down into your seat. Your eyes are starting to water. You might have trouble breathing. But you’re doing great. You’re looking out that window into the black of space, everything shaking. There’s some pinpricks of stars, light-years away, wobbling out there.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Fantasy

An Oral History of the Schooner Key Invasion

by Alex Irvine

Author spotlight

When you look out from the garage doors of the corrugated steel warehouse where the Fort Springwell Community College soccer team made their heroic stand against the forces of darkness, the view at first seems . . . idyllic. A rocky shoreline, uncommon for Florida. Periodically the beam of a lighthouse sweeps across our field of view. Everything looks normal, except on its course across the little cove, the beam lights up magical sigils that form a barrier from the lighthouse point to the other side of the cove.

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Science Fiction

Memeostasis

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

“They farm starlight.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, they’re going to farm starlight. For now they’re running fusion rigs. But that’s not their long-term plan.”

“No one in the sunforsaken Oort has a long-term plan. Other than slow suicide. You know what they told me, when I was first coming out here? ‘There are warmer ways to die.’ That’s in the bloody Kuiper.”

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)

Fantasy

The Best of Intentions

by Mari Ness

She assures them, again and again, that she acted under the best—the very best—of intentions. Oh, yes, she can be a bit dramatic at times—she won’t deny that. And she was hurt—very hurt—by that mess with the invitations. She won’t deny that, either.

But surely—surely—no one can think that she would respond by hurting an innocent child?

In Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 193 (June 2026)