LIGHTSPEED is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF--and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.Welcome to LIGHTSPEED's 116th issue! This month, both our SF originals wrestle with alternate realities. In "The Men Who Change the World," writer Christopher East creat...

A collection of speculative fiction offers "a darkly comic look at how far people will go to hold on to the devices that are replacing human experience" ( The Washington Post).Universal Love welcomes readers to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to the drowned ...

The "stunning, harrowing, and brilliantly imagined" story collection featuring "After Yang," the basis for the A24 film starring Colin Farrell (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven).A New York Times Notable BookChildren of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Man...

**AN EXTRAORDINARILY RESONANT AND PROPHETIC COLLECTION OF SPECULATIVE SHORT FICTION FOR OUR TECH-**SAVVY ERA BY DEBUT AUTHOR ALEXANDER WEINSTEINChildren of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unb...

A hypnotic collection of speculative fiction about compassion, love, and human resilience in the technological hyper-age, from Alexander Weinstein, author of Children of the New World.Universal Love welcomes listeners to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to t...

Second in a trilogy, this far-future science fiction is set in Los Angeles-action adventure with a cyberpunk tone. Kris Ballard's life changed irrevocably when, a year ago, she was targeted for termination by the Meridian corporation, one of the mega-conglomerates that controls the government in this dystopian future. She hid amongst the underground resistance-but now, right as her training with the anti-corporate movement is nearing its end, their compound is destroyed. Ready or not, Kris...

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our timeOttessa Moshfegh’s debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015.Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for deb...

An NPR, GQ, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the YearOne of The Washington Post’s best science fiction and fantasy books of the yearThe acclaimed author of The Dream of Perpetual Motion returns with a compelling novel about the effects of science and technology on our friendships, our love lives, and our sense of self.Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following ...

In her mesmerizing debut, Shobha Rao recounts the untold human costs of one of the largest migrations in history.1947: the Indian subcontinent is partitioned into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. And with one decree, countless lives are changed forever.An Unrestored Woman explores the fault lines in this mass displacement of humanity: a new mother is trapped on the wrong side of the border; a soldier finds the love of his life but is pow...

Over the past several decades, Edith Pearlman has staked her claim as one of the all-time great practitioners of the short story. Her incomparable vision, consummate skill, and bighearted spirit have earned her consistent comparisons to Anton Chekhov, John Updike, Alice Munro, Grace Paley, and Frank O'Connor. Her latest work, gathered in this stunning collection of twenty new stories, is an occasion for celebration.Pearlman writes with warmth about the predicaments of being human. ...

The definitive novel of today’s Silicon Valley, After On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times bestselling author Rob Reid.Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villai...

Have you ever wondered what it's like to live through a bioweapon attack or to have every aspect of your life governed by invisible ants? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok."Anda's Game" is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of "cyber sweatshops," in which people are paid very low wages ...