“Sarah’s Laugh” by Melissa A Watkins – 3.8
Lightspeed, May 2026 The story is told by a woman walking a young Canadian scholar through what used to be San Francisco — now called Sarah’s Haven — on his…
“Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 2]” by Ashok K. Banker – 3.8
Lightspeed, April 2026 Part 2 opens with Six-Gun returning to New Providence to find the town has turned against her. Beauchamp has spent the day working his influence, the sheriff…
“Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 1]” by Ashok K. Banker – 3.5
Lightspeed, April 2026 The narrator — known by the handle Six-Gun Vixen — is a deeply compelling outsider figure: a brown-skinned, six-armed, wolf-eared woman of South Asian origin, shadow-cursed and…
“Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight” by V.M. Ayala – 3.4
Lightspeed, April 2026 Zero Santos — nonbinary, biracial, working-class, and known to the crowds as Saint Zero of the Hollows — is a jousting knight fighting their way through a…
“Empathetic Psychosis” by Justin C. Key – 3.8
Lightspeed, April 2026 Dr. Jason Holloway — psychiatrist, three-time divorcee, recovering alcoholic, and self-diagnosed schizophrenic — arrives in Los Angeles to take on the role of Clinical Director at Margins…
“Terms of Enlightenment” by Patrick Hurley – 3.9
Lightspeed, March 2026 Jay Bender — born Jaime Arvind Chicao, a serial nonviolent offender who has spent his life exploiting loopholes and shedding identities — is sentenced by his judge-counselor…
“Lotus Dew for the Emperor’s Tea” by Vanessa Fogg – 4.4
Lightspeed, March 2026 In a mythic First Age, the First Emperor rules an immortal paradise where no winter falls, orchards bloom endlessly, and death is banished from the court. Each…
“Espie Droger Dreams of War” by Matthew Kressel – 3.7
Lightspeed, March 2026 Espie Droger is a young data engineer working in a subbasement office of a government Procurement and Logistics building, surrounded by moldering cardboard boxes and lit by…
“An Encounter at the Dawn of the Time War” by JT Petty – 3.6
Lightspeed, March 2026 The story is narrated by an unnamed woman living in a homeless encampment beneath an overpass in August 2019 — a university-educated immigrant sharing a row of…
“Warren’s Tentacle” by Susan Palwick – 3.3
Lightspeed, February 2026 Warren wakes from surgery after an accident to find that AI surgical bots have drastically altered his body. Rather than simply repairing his injuries, the bots have…