Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 192 (May 2026) - Lightspeed Magazine, #192

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 192 of LIGHTSPEED! If you love SF about time travel and alternate realities, this month is going to delight you. Our first SF short is "The Star Where We Meet" by Sam W. Pisciotta, a tale of family, space travel, and the shifting nature of reality. Then we've got "The Test of Time," a new SF novelette from Kristine Kathryn Rusch containing all the SFnal crunchiness of time travel paradoxes inside a delicious academia setting. It's like the Reese's peanut butter cup of SF novelettes! We also have a couple of unsettling flash stories: "The Knacker Man" from Scott Dalrymple and "The Stars Look Away From This Vessel" by dave ring. Our fantasy works include "Sarah's Laugh" by Melissa A Watkins, a powerful and timely story of resistance. Ada Hoffman serves up the grimly insightful "Ten Unsent Letters to the Dark Lord." We also have flash pieces from Yoon Ha Lee ("The Aerialist"), and Christopher Barzak ("The Last Season of Your Life").