LIGHTSPEED is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF-and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.

Welcome to issue 166 of LIGHTSPEED! We start off the month with an original science fiction short by Shingai Njeri Kagunda: "Let the Star Explode." It's a story that re-envisions what space travel might be like-and how it can connect us to others in utterly unexpected ways. Adam-Troy Castro returns to our pages with a meditation on the nature of cruelty against non-humans in his story "The Three Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Third Law of Robotics." We also have two terrific flash pieces: "An Incomplete Body Has No Answers" from Angela Liu and "Islands of Stability" by Marissa Lingen. Alex Irvine brings us an original fairy tale in his new fantasy short, "Kopki and the Fish." Sharang Biswas explores the social life of gods in his story "Season of Weddings." We also have a flash story ("Fragments of a Symbiotic Life") from Will McMahon, and another ("Only Some of True Love's Miracles") from P H Lee. For nonfiction, we have spotlight interviews with our short fiction authors and another round of book reviews from our staff. Our ebook readers will also enjoy a book excerpt from THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS by Premee Mohamed.