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A Pound of Darkness, a Quarter of Dreams
by Tony Ballantyne Time: 18m (ShortStory)
Issue: Lightspeed 88
(Historical Fantasy) Miss Scales
supplies her shop from Keswick’s, but today they’ve sent her a new account
representative, and he’s really the salesman from Hell.
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(SF) Henrietta has inoperable cancer,
but she rejects the medical treatments the aliens are offering.
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A Touch of Heart by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and Adam-Troy
Castro Time: 15m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 86
(Chinese Historical Fantasy) Dou hates
his neighbor because Gan’s farm flourishes while his own languishes. Enough
to seek out the Black Touch.
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(SF Horror) A tiny spherical gateway
into another reality opens in Manhattan, and it causes chaos as it sucks
things in and grows.
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(Fantasy Horror) In which a witch
offers to save the life of a wounded soldier, but she takes her time with it.
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(SF Epic) Tone’s wife has terminal
cancer, and to get the money to pay to freeze her until there’s a cure, he
signs up on a starship that won’t be back for centuries.
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(Climate SF) After his teammate
disappears in the ruins of Las Vegas, a newsman goes to investigate—even
though he has a desk job and has never been in the field before.
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(Slipstream Humor) Megan has learned
that being a vampire sucks, but it turns out there are worse things to be.
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Cake Baby (A Kango and Sharon Adventure)
by Charlie Jane Anders Time: 24m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 90
(SF Humor) To avoid having their
spaceship repossessed, Kango and Sharon go on a dangerous mission to
infiltrate a cult and steal DNA from their children.
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(Contemporary Fantasy) Helping an old
man get over a chain-link fence leads the narrator into the world of the
occult.
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(Horror) Every 72 minutes, Negelein
has a vision of his own death. They don’t hurt him, but they’re so vivid,
they’re ruining his life.
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(Portal Fantasy) Her parents warn her
about the people in white vans who take little children to portal worlds, but
the narrator really, really wants to go.
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(Science Fantasy) Aria just has a few days
to save the whole universe from being swallowed up by Zarzak, the infinite
love machine.
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(Modern Fantasy) A young hemophiliac
American boy in Italy visits a creepy old house to try to get old stamps for
his collection.
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James, In the Golden Sunlight of the Hereafter
by Adam-Troy Castro Time: 21m (ShortStory)
Issue: Lightspeed 84
(Afterlife Fantasy) James really
enjoys Heaven, but he wonders why he can’t find his wife and kids anywhere.
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(Superheroes) Ice Sickle joined the
Excaliburs to fight evil, but Sin-Master may be her match.
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(Space Opera; Sun Lords of the
Principality) Stuck on an inhospitable planet with his enemies closing in and
his spaceship in dire need of repairs, Kitshan finds an unlikely source of
help.
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(Near-Future SF) Sam is a talented hacker who extracts
Jane’s personal info in order to seduce her.
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(Near-Future SF) Users who stop taking
a memory enhancement drug end up losing everything they learned on it, making
it possible for banks to repossess someone’s education.
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(Time Travel) You get one chance to go
back in time and spend 30 minutes trying to fix the worst mistake you ever
made. Which one will you pick?
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(Surreal SF) Hadly explores an old
derelict spaceship that orbits Neptune. It ought to be inert, but somehow
something still functions.
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(SF) Donna’s cold and distant husband
has an industrial accident the day she planned to leave him, so she stays to
nurse him back to health. After that, he’s different—in ways she likes.
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(Modern Fantasy) Unexpectedly, you
woke up female this morning, in someone else's body. Now you have to decide
what to do about it.
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(Portal Fantasy) Corinna was eleven
when her magical journey to the Land of Nibiru ended with her returning to
her kitchen at home. Now she’s waiting for her friends to return for her.
Probably.
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(Modern Fantasy) Chaplin Win is in
trouble for letting an unauthorized ghost talk with hospital patients, and
inspectors are coming tomorrow.
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(Multiverse) Sarah travels the
multiverse looking for a reality where her daughter isn’t a drug addict.
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(Fantasy) As a girl, Mara learned that
you need to cry seven tears into the sea to summon a selkie. She’s always
felt more a sea creature than a land creature anyway.
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(Lovecraftian Horror) The narrator and
his friend are racing towards Florida running away from the drug dealer they
repossessed it from. But something worse is waiting in front of them.
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Six-Gun Vixen and the Dead Coon Trashgang
by Ashok K. Banker
Time: 26m (Novelette) Issue: Lightspeed 81
(Old West Fantasy) Six-gun rides into
Dead Gulch and finds the townspeople don’t like “her kind,” but they have a
mission for her: to kill the Dead Coon Trashgang.
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(Near-future SFF) After the government
rules he isn't really human, Chris loses his human wife and hybrid kids.
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(Alternate History Fantasy) On 9/11, a
squad of wizards from the UK appears and uses magic to prevent most of the
carnage.
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(YA Portal Fantasy; Dungeonspace) Flip
and his teenage friends accept a dangerous mission to steal from a dragon.
They’re really too green to attempt this, the dragon is very old and
powerful, and they’re falling behind on their trigonometry homework.
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(Modern Fantasy Horror) Only Marianne
can see that her new brother-in-law is a horror, and although she knows she
can summon the faeries to get rid of him, she also knows the price will be
very high.
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The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole
Quadrant by Rachael
K. Jones
Time: 14m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 91
(SF Horror) A group of runaway cyborgs
has to prepare meals for unknowing human ships or else blow their cover. But
they’re short on one critical ingredient.
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(Time Travel) The time travelers
across the road think they’re being clever, but Jade’s family spotted them
right away. Even so, they’ve got a daughter her age, and she wants to make
friends.
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The House at the End of the Lane Is Dreaming
by A. Merc Rustad Time: 22m (ShortStory)
Issue: Lightspeed 91
(SFF) Alex’s town is being attacked by
aliens, and she needs to save it somehow.
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(Fantasy) It pleases Mrs. Lim that her
children keep sending her gifts even ten years after her death, but her
daughter’s gifts aren’t always appropriate.
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(Post-Apocalypse) Casey’s only
companion on the Airforce base is a robot, which is determined to protect
her. That includes keeping her from investigating frozen clones that might
survive in a distant vault.
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(Far-Future SF) Five sex partners
decide to explore the remains of a casino that was pushed into a black hole
an eon ago.
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(Urban Fantasy) Some nights shining
lights appear atop hills in urban areas, and people who walk into them
disappear—some say to fairyland. A cop who thinks otherwise tries to talk a
young woman out of trying it.
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(Fantasy Erotica) The new queen wants
a beautiful male statue carved to satisfy her desires.
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(Horror) Jason struggles with a bully
in elementary school, a stepdad who hates him, and he thinks the local
equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle is causing local kids to disappear.
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(SF) Two years into a twelve-year
voyage, Morgan copes with the fact that the rest of the waking crew despises
him and can’t tell him why.
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(Offworld SF) The Dunyshar are
stranded on an outpost, but NuTay dreams of going home to Earth.
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(SF) He spent his childhood on another
planet, but he’s trying to fit into highschool on Earth, and he really wants
a girl.
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(SF Horror) Married at age 10, she was
determined to do anything to support her husband. No matter what.
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(SFF) Ugo can “remember” things from
the future, which he shares with Cynthia—including the fact that she’ll be
his wife someday.
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What I Told My Little Girl About the Aliens
Preparing to Grind Us Into Hamburgers by Adam-Troy Castro Time: 08m (ShortStory)
Issue: Lightspeed 89
(SF Horror) The narrator’s
four-year-old asks uncomfortable questions about the holocaust that awaits
the human race in just a few weeks.
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(Tamil Historical Clockwork Fantasy) A
mother tells her children the story of a famous Tamil king who was a
clockwork mechanism.
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(Portal Fantasy) Your house is full of
doors to other worlds, and you can’t keep yourself from exploring them—even
though they’re dangerous.
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Wednesday, January 3, 2018
2017 Lightspeed Magazine
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