LIGHTSPEED is a digital 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 issue 188 of LIGHTSPEED! We're starting the issue with a story by writing duo Corey Jae White and Maddison Stoff: "Mother's Hip." It's set in an all-too-believable future where corporations wage wars and the human consciousness is hackable. Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe's newest story ("Hunter, Hunter") also riffs on classic SF ideas about work and minds, making it a terrific partner for "Mother's Hip." In both pieces, there's a powerful sense of the organic contrasting against nearly cyberpunk elements, which feels very appropriate for fiction publishing in 2026. This month we've got four great pieces of flash fiction. For SF, we've got Effie Seiberg's new piece "Bots All the Way Down" and Eli Brown's "A Brief Public Announcement." Our fantasy flash pieces both focus on demons and devils. We start off with "Choose Your Own Damnation" by Kehkashan Khalid-which riffs off classic Choose Your Own Adventure novels-and then we have a dark fantasy story we were tempted to publish over at our sister magazine Nightmare: "Academic Neutrality" by M.R. Robinson. We also have two fantasy short stories, of course. Marisca Pichette's "Where the Chicken-Footed Dwell" explores the story of Baba Yaga's hut. Adam-Troy Castro returns to our pages with a touching new story called "The Moving Finger." Plus we have nonfiction, including spotlight interviews with our writers and fresh new book reviews.