LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE - Science Fiction and Fantasy Story Podcast (Sci-Fi | Audiobook | Short Stories)

You’ve been driving for hours and I wish you would stop. You clutch the steering wheel so hard, your knuckles pop white, your palms slick with sweat and desperation. Sunken, glassy, your eyes flick between the fuel gauge, the endless road, and the trembling land through which we pass. | © 2024 by KT Bryski. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the third evening of every week, dozens come to Stalactite Keep to hear the storyteller teach about the place beyond Wonderland. Tonight, with only dewdrops of honeycomb light seeping through the cells of the sky, Creed told them of toys. | © 2024 by Wen-yi Lee. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josea Dream was the pearl captain at the heart of the bivalve ship <i>Blue Spring</i>, which had swum the black for a thousand years. It was a mystery to Josea---it was a mystery to anyone who’d ever thought about it---why the bivalves suffered their captains’ proddings. | © 2024 by Christopher Rowe. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This discussion features Everdeen Mason, a journalist and editorial director at the New York Times Games, known for her insightful critiques and storytelling. The conversation dives into the emotional struggles of identity and resilience faced by the protagonist, Scarlett. Listeners explore the delicate balance of aesthetics and functionality in AI creation, and the ethical dilemmas arising from intimacy with artificial beings. The narrative prompts reflection on personal growth amid societal expectations set against a richly imagined sci-fi backdrop.

Recent scholarship has shed considerable light on many previously puzzling or mysterious aspects of the life of the Baba Yaga---or, as some would still have it, the Baba Yagas. But one element has remained largely unstudied, and indeed, almost completely ignored. | © 2024 by Mari Ness. Narrated by Susan Hanfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mahō Shōjo Kira Kira Sunlight is an American web series created by an unknown animator or animators. The show combines magical girl anime tropes with cosmic horror, following high schooler Sally Hoshino (Kira Kira Sunlight) and her friends. | © 2024 by Stewart C Baker. Narrated by Susan Hanfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coffin she carried had felt like an imposition at first—a holy imposition! a welcome imposition! but an imposition nonetheless. But by now she had carried it on her shoulders out from the tenth school, carried it across plains, up and down canyons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My son tells me that there’s a man in the house, someone he hears well after the lights are out, in the narrower halls or maybe at the far side of the den---a gait and creak he’s certain isn’t me or his mom, since he can hear us both breathing heavily and tossing in our sleep. | © 2024 by Thomas Ha. Narrated by Mirron Willis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s my twelfth birthday and we’re all waiting for Wormwood and everyone is here and I mean everyone. Me and Mom and Dad and Big Pa which is my grandpa who was the strong man at one of the last traveling carnivals in America, and Bigfoot of course, and a swarm of killer bees collectively named Kyle who aren’t really so mean. | © 2024 by David Anaxagoras. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Good evening, sir,” Dave says pleasantly, hiding his crossword puzzle under his computer keyboard, as the front door chimes. “Do you have a reservation?” “Afraid not.” The guest fiddles with his suitcase. “I saw the No Vacancy sign, but I gotta ask---” “No problem at all.” Dave’s keyboard clatters busily, a series of well-practiced keystrokes. | © 2024 by Aimee Ogden. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices