Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 191 (April 2026)

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 191 of LIGHTSPEED! If you love a Weird West adventure, then you are in luck, because we are serializing Ashok K. Banker's novelette "e;Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley,"e; a new story of kidnapping, body modifications, and a most lovable half-wolf, half-horse steed. If the name "e;Six-Gun Vixen"e; rings a bell, it's because she first appeared in "e;Six-Gun Vixen and the Dead Coon Trashgang"e; all the way back in our eighty-first issue. The fantasy fun continues with two great flash stories: "e;Hell Is Empty"e; from J.R. Dawson and "e;Time Management"e; from P.A. Cornell. Our SF flash includes "e;Dad Died on Discord"e; by Andrew Dana Hudson and "e;Update on Rules for the Spatiotemporal Use of Campus Spaces"e; by Andrea Kriz. Our first piece of original SF this month is V.M. Ayala's "e;Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight."e; Dr. Justin C. Key returns to our pages with "e;Empathetic Psychosis,"e; a speculative story about helping treat mental illness.