What do you think?
Rate this book
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 192
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 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 "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").
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 "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").
185 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 29, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 16, 2026
Review and rating are solely for "The Star Where We Meet," a short story by new-to-me author Sam W. Pisciotta. I read the story because editor John Joseph Adams previewed and recommended it at his blog. Here's part of the preview:
"At the end of the thousand-year dream (that is to say, when I arrive here at the junction of Castor and Pollux) I wake to starlight, which likewise seems like a dream, although I know that it isn’t. I’m consciously aware of myself, the collection of photons within the quantum matrix that holds my quirks and foibles, my loves and concerns, and I feel myself becoming, and it’s like waking to flashes of sunlight in my eyes, a hyper-focused moment in which I unspool from one spindle while simultaneously respooling onto another, and as I thread into Central Station...."
This is an intriguing (and confusing) puzzle-piece. It's clearly just the beginning of a longer story. Elsewhere, the author mentions that he is working on his first novel. My guess (and hope) is, this is chapter 1. Recommended reading, if you don't mind being left hanging. A 4-star read for me, in part because of that hope. Try it, and what you think.
Direct story link: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Link to JJA's blog, which is worthwhile: https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/...
"At the end of the thousand-year dream (that is to say, when I arrive here at the junction of Castor and Pollux) I wake to starlight, which likewise seems like a dream, although I know that it isn’t. I’m consciously aware of myself, the collection of photons within the quantum matrix that holds my quirks and foibles, my loves and concerns, and I feel myself becoming, and it’s like waking to flashes of sunlight in my eyes, a hyper-focused moment in which I unspool from one spindle while simultaneously respooling onto another, and as I thread into Central Station...."
This is an intriguing (and confusing) puzzle-piece. It's clearly just the beginning of a longer story. Elsewhere, the author mentions that he is working on his first novel. My guess (and hope) is, this is chapter 1. Recommended reading, if you don't mind being left hanging. A 4-star read for me, in part because of that hope. Try it, and what you think.
Direct story link: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Link to JJA's blog, which is worthwhile: https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/...
Displaying 1 of 1 review