LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE - Science Fiction and Fantasy Story Podcast (Sci-Fi | Audiobook | Short Stories)
Adamant Press
Edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams, LIGHTSPEED is a Hugo Award-winning, critically-acclaimed digital magazine. In its pages, you'll find science fiction from near-future stories and sociological SF to far-future, star-spanning SF. Plus there's fantasy from epic sword-and-sorcery and contemporary urban tales to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folk tales. Each month, LIGHTSPEED brings you a mix of original short stories and flash fiction featuring a variety of authors, from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard yet. When you read LIGHTSPEED, you'll see where science fiction and fantasy have come from, where they are now, and where they're going. The LIGHTSPEED podcast, produced by Grammy Award-winning narrator and producer Stefan Rudnicki of Skyboat Media, features original audio short stories 6-8 times a month.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 25, 2014 • 42min
Annalee Newitz | Drones Don’t Kill People
I was always already a killer. There was no hazy time in my memory before I knew how to target a person’s heart or brain for clean execution. I did not develop a morbid fascination with death over time; I did not spend my childhood mutilating animals; I was not abused by a violent parent; I did not suffer social injustice until finally I broke down and turned to professional violence. From the moment I was conscious, I could kill and I did. | Copyright 2014 by Annalee Newitz. Narrated by Claire Benedek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 18, 2014 • 37min
Matthew Hughes | Enter Saunterance
Back in Obron’s workroom, Kaslo told the wizard his theory that the reason their enemy had sent a fire elemental against them was because he wanted the fiery spirit to seize the noubles the op had originally acquired from the murderous thaumaturge, Asrat Gozon. “Fire cannot harm them,” he finished. | Copyright 2014 by Matthew Hughes. Narrated by Paul Boehmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 11, 2014 • 28min
Kat Howard | A Flock of Grief by Kat Howard
The woman’s dress was perfectly correct. Indeed, it, and she, would have been utterly unremarkable, were it not for the bird perched upon her shoulder, black-feathered, eyes with the seasick luminosity of moonstones. “Vulgar,” Sofie said to me under her breath. “Why go out in society at all, if you are going to appear like that? No one wishes to have a party disturbed by such reminders of grief and mortality." | Copyright 2014 by Kat Howard. Narrated by Gabrielle de Cuir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 4, 2014 • 30min
Sunny Moraine | What Glistens Back
Come back. You hear the call as the lander breaks up around you. You’re aware of the entirely arbitrary concepts of up and down before you realize what’s happening, and then they’re a lot less arbitrary. Down is not so much a direction as a function of possibility, of what might happen to you, of what is happening now. You finally get down as an idea. | Copyright 2014 by Sunny Moraine. Narrated by Claire Benedek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 28, 2014 • 34min
Megan Kurashige | The Quality of Descent by Megan Kurashige (narrated by Stefan Rudnicki)
The trick begins like this: The magician throws an egg up into the air, where it flies — small and white and full of import — up and up, high into the black reaches of the proscenium. We await the descent, holding our breaths, expecting at any moment the crash of slapstick hilarity, exploding like a bomb. But the egg simply vanishes. | Copyright 2014 by Megan Kurashige. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 21, 2014 • 45min
Marie Vibbert | Jupiter Wrestlerama
Two-Ton Tony had a hard body, and though Karen knew the facts of life cold and backward by the time she got her chance to push him against a wall, she’d never had anything so sweet. Biceps like boulders, arms to swing on and hips to ride: a body like a playground. She’d held on to him and never quite believed her luck that he let her. | Copyright 2014 by Marie Vibbert. Narrated by Susan Hanfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 14, 2014 • 35min
Steve Hockensmith | The Herd
As long as we’re waiting, why don’t I tell you a little story? You look like the kind of man who could profit by it. Don’t take offense, now. I meant that as a compliment. You remind me of me, that’s all. I’m a cowhand myself. Or was, anyway. I’ve been up and down the Chisholm Trail so many times I could walk it blindfolded from Brownsville to Abilene. | 2014 by Steve Hockensmith. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 7, 2014 • 45min
Daniel José Older | Dust
Very late at night, when the buzz of drill dozers has died out, I can hear her breathing. I know that sounds crazy. I don’t care. Tonight, I have to concentrate extra hard because there’s a man lying beside me; he’s snoring with the contented abandon of the well-fucked and all that panting has heavied up the air in my quarters. | Copyright 2014 by Daniel José Older. Narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 23, 2014 • 56min
Sam J. Miller | We Are the Cloud
Me and Case met when someone slammed his head against my door, so hard I heard it with my earphones in and my Game Boy cranked up loud. Sad music from Mega Man 2 filled my head and then there was this thud like the world stopped spinning for a second. I turned the thing off and flipped it shut, felt its warmth between my hands. Slipped it under my pillow. Copyright 2014 by Sam J. Miller. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 16, 2014 • 52min
Matthew Hughes | Under the Scab
It was too late in the day to start back to Indoberia. Kaslo tried to find ways to busy himself about the castle, but his thoughts would not leave him alone. Finally, he went up to the flat roof of one of the larger towers and leaned against the parapet as the planet’s sun sank below a horizon no longer broken by the Commune’s skyline. In the opposite direction, the stars were coming out, but Kaslo saw only a handful of the glittering orbitals that used to stretch in a sparkling, glinting arc across the night sky. | 2014 by Matthew Hughes. Narrated by Paul Boehmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
