Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 181 (June 2025)

LIGHTSPEED is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF-and from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.

Welcome to issue 181 of LIGHTSPEED! One of science fiction's greatest functions is asking "what if," and we've packed this issue with terrific what-if stories. We're starting the month with "The Twenty-One Second God," a new story from Peter Watts asking pointed questions about virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Marissa Lingen delves into the unintentional effects of new technology in her hilarious story "All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." And our flash writers continue interrogating reality and technology-Reyes Ramirez explores the horizons of the housing crisis in "Multi-Spatial Apartment Complex Malfunction Results in Body Horror," and in "See Now the Misfortune of the Thinking Tenax," Lowry Poletti delves into questions of other minds. Our fantasy stories focus a bit more tightly on relationships and magic. Vanessa Fogg's new story "When the Faerie King Toured the Human Realm" mixes social media crazes with the faerie world-shining a light on the complex relationships we project upon our favorite content creators. Carrie Vaughn melds international politics with magic and tea in a wonderfully cozy new short, "A Week at the Raven Feather Salon." We also have a flash story ("Eyes Grown Thick on the World") from Will McMahon, and another ("My Mother, the Supervillain") from Benjamin Blattberg.