Status Updates From Lightspeed Magazine, Issue ...

"The Cheesemaker and the Undying King" : 5.0* I had hoped the story would be as good as the title, and it was. Cheesemaker is asked to get cheese for the Veiled King every week. She cultivates mold from a cheese rind, replicating her (great-)grandmother's recipe for Barber's Blue, a cheese to heal diseases. She succeed and leaves for the north with Fanchion (a young girl that was a guard along with her brother).

"Test 4 Echo" : DNF I just don't understand what is happening.

"If We Do Not Fly at Sunset": 3.0* Queer fae second-person narrative. Maybe falling in love with a girl.

"It Came Gently": 1.0* I don't get it. It's very short and I don't understand what is happening. Something about water?

"Magical Girl Burnout Bingo": 3.0* Plum was a magical girl, but she used up her magic to bring herself back to life. She is friend with Lyric, another former magical girl, and they are together when Aqua is fighting the hydra over their heads. They get rid of the hydra, but Aqua dies. She talks to the other magical girl on Aqua's phone and offers her help.

"The Plastic People" : 3.0 Rich people camp out in the dumps on Earth. Reah "rescues" a feral child. He keeps throwing up what she gives him to eat, because people on the surface have modified themselves to eat plastic. She abandons the child in the trash dump on the station.

The Hammer of God: 4.0* Mother Frey and Novice Miri are asked to investigate mysterious deaths by the"hammer of god". All the victims are somewhat related to [Dimmick] Fell, the last of his family. They visit him in the blacksmith he took over after the death of the owner. Frey asks him to destroy it. During the night, the blacksmith's place is destroyed.

Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu: 4.0* About Orin, a Beaconer (bounty hunter maybe?) who tracks down their mechanic (Calam/Yen) back to their homeworld of Zhenzhu after their mother sent them a message saying she was dying. It was a trap set by Evan, who was determined to eliminate all traces of the Luying people. Orin offers to rewrite the Luying, but Calam wants to allow anyone to amend the Common Records.

Test 4 Echo Peter Watts ****

When it moved, it devoured the crust of the Earth. As we bathed, we absorbed it into us where it began taking apart the things inside that made us human. In the end, it became everything. The word for world was replaced by water; water was replaced by us, strong like a wave with an infinite hunger churning inside.

It Came Gently **

“The Plastic People" by Tobias S. Buckell ****

He laughed. “We left because we could. Because we’re better, richer, superior.” Garrison hit the button, and the airlock doors thudded shut, leaving the Earth child alone in their trash.

Magazine, Lightspeed; Adams, John Joseph. Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 144 (May 2022) (p. 37). Adamant Press. Kindle Edition.

Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu by Grace Chan ****