Website: lightspeedmagazine.com

"Herd Immunity" Author: Tananarive Due Main Characters: Nayima, Kyle Main Elements: Science Fiction - Post-apocalyptic "No Lonely Seafarer" Author: Sarah Pinsker Main Characters: Alex Main Elements: Sirens "Starfall" Author: Saundra Mitchell Main Characters: Amara Main Elements: Science Fiction "Prayers of Forges and Furnaces" Author: Aliette de Bodard Main Characters: Xochipil, Tezoca Main Elements: Gods "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind)" Author: Holly Black Main Characters: Tera, Reth Main Elements: SF - Aliens "Under the Scab" Author: Matthew Hughes Main Characters: Main Elements: "We Are the Cloud" Author: Sam J. Miller Main Characters: Angel (Saurus), Case Main Elements: SF - Cyberpunk "Eternal Horizon" Author: Rhys Hughes Main Characters: Renuka, Luis Rodrigues Main Elements: Gods

On the whole, I enjoyed most of the stories. The first one is part of a three part series, so it is missing the beginning and the end, but it has an interesting twist nonetheless.

No Lonely Seafarer had an interesting main character with a secret.

Starfall puzzled me, I didn't really get what was going on until I read the interview with the author that followed which explained it. Was one of the least interesting of the group, also rather implausible, seeing as you can only be made of the starstuff of a star that already went nova, not of one before it did...

Prayers of Forges and Furnaces pits machines against ancient Aztec gods with a bit of steampunk thrown in. There's apparently another story in the same world, I'd be interested in hunting that one down, not that I found this story amazing, it just had a unique premise.

Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler was written in a very fun format, I very much enjoyed reading this one.

For now I skipped Under the Scab, because it is the seventh installment of an overall story arc. Will come back to this later when I've read the earlier stories. --> Review of the entire Kaslo Chronicles

We Are the Cloud is the reason I read this issue of Lightspeed, as it was a Nebula nominee...frankly, I would have picked two or three other stories in this issue as being better than this one. Young gay orphaned kid gets drawn into gay porn, boyfriend ditches him, kid gets pissed at the world. Sure it covers deep topics, but I didn't find it covered them in a meaningful or insightful way. The actual SF aspect of it is minimal, and doesn't really play a big role in the story and given this is an SF award I'd be more interested in knowing what Angel could do with his clouddiving powers than what he has in his pants...

Eternal Horizon was so weird I couldn't grasp it. What if a new horizon should suddenly appear in front of the real horizon? I can't even envision what that would look like, though worrying that the sun might set behind the first one and land in the ocean and boil it away is a valid concern. But yeah...very weird premise.