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 169 of LIGHTSPEED! Both of our SF short stories explore the realm of the robotic. Andrea Kriz starts us off with "Udo Gehler and the Virgin Bitch of the Resistance," a novelette about a young mecha pilot in a soul-crushing society. Oyedotun Damilola Muees brings us a killing machine with a conscience in his new epistolary story "Warning Notes from an Annihilator Machine." We also have two terrific flash pieces: "The Waking Sleep of a Seething Wound" from dave ring and "The Help Hotline" by Dominica Phetteplace. Our fantasy shorts both wrestle with the gods and fate. Varsha Dinesh spins a tale of gods, magic, and body modification in "Sparrow and the Parasol." In Deborah L. Davitt's new "In the Hands of the Mountain God," an icy pilgrimage turns into something more complicated. Megan Chee has a flash story, "An Otherworldly Cat Tells You the Secrets of the Universe," as does Shanna Germain ("The Weight of Salt").