Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 184

by Lightspeed Magazine, John Joseph Adams

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 184 of LIGHTSPEED! We're kicking off the month with a new SF short by Kel "Last Meal Aboard the Awassa," a space-faring tale about the importance of gratitude and community in the face of adversity. In C.Z. Tacks' "The Girlfriend Experience," we steer into a more cyberpunk-flavored experience. We also have two terrific flash "The Place I Came To" from Filip Hajdar Drnovsek Zorko and "City of One" by Stephen S. Power. Our original fantasy includes "Apeiron," a new short by Cadwell Turnbull that perfectly captures what it's like to parent a talented and gifted teen . . . but with a magical twist. Isabel J. Kim brings us a beautiful story about sirens, family, and the power of love in "Human Voices." We also have a flash story ("Beginning Before and After The End") from Jake Stein and another ("On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting") from Bogi Takacs.

Genres: Science Fiction

165 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2025

Reviews

[Pontus Doverstav · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good issue, with a very strong closing story in Human Voices. I also enjoyed Apeiron and The Girlfriend Experience (enjoyed might be the wrong word here, but it was nicely crafted cyberpunk story), and Beginning Before and After the End get a bonus point for an interesting concept!

[Heni · Rating 3 out of 5]

C.Z. Tacks (“The Girlfriend Experience”)
Not a favorite. 1 ⭐

Kel Coleman (“Last Meal Aboard the Awassa”)
I love how they "accept" the Armageddon instead of freaking out. Accepting the inevitable is the highest level of zen. 4 ⭐

“The Place I Came To” from Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko
Anyone who experience migration will relate to this. A place you end up can be this small convene of your apartment but it is yours. 3 ⭐

“City of One” by Stephen S. Power
The story is written in "game instructions manual" which basically: being seen kill you but you cannot remain unseen. This game (societal metaphor) is impossible to be won with this kind of rule. 5 ⭐

Isabel J. Kim (“Human Voices”)
I can't blame Irina for capturing this siren, because siren drowns people. But I can't blame the siren for killing people cz it its nature. Dilemma dillema. 5 ⭐

Cadwell Turnbull (“Apeiron”)
Kind of vague but I like the setting of eternal winter. Still the story is unfocused. 2 ⭐

“Beginning Before and After The End”) from Jake Stein
Not much of a story, I think. Just blabbering nonsense. 1 ⭐

“On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting”) from Bogi Takács
It is a letter written by the MC to a professor, confessing that he might cause series of haunting and apologize for it. Kind of remind me of ghost plague in Lockwood series. 4 ⭐

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an issue of Lightspeed that was mostly full of interesting, literary writing. But only two stories really were standouts for me:
- 'Apeiron' by Caldwell Turnbull is a clever allegorical story about the nature of the process of creating, and the struggle against the existential void.
- 'Human Voices' by Isabel J. Kim takes a story of a family's loss and their coping with it, while simultaneously dealing with the monster responsible. Folklore and echoes of the film, The Shape of Water, abound.

[Logolepsy]

Placeholder per la lettura del singolo racconto "Un'Omodesta Proposta" di Andrew Dana Hudson, tradotto da Vargas e pubblicato dalla rivista Malgrado le Mosche.

Si può leggere qui e consiglio caldamente di farlo, soprattutto oggi: https://www.malgradolemosche.com/2025...

[Simon Duchastel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Last Meal Aboard the Awassa" by Kel Coleman was touching and mournful. "The Girlfriend Experience" by Tacks was also excellent.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stars are for Human Voices, did not care for the rest