Lightspeed #186, November 2025

“How to Set Up Your Mourning Robot” by Angela Liu

“In the Zone” by Lisa M. Bradley

“Elegy for Zephyr One” by Gene Doucette

“Beneath the Umdlebe Tree; or, A Vegetable Love Story” by Modupeoluwa Shelle

“Visible Damage” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

“How to Build a Homecoming Queen: A Guide by a Bad Asian Girl” by Tina S. Zhu

“Operation: Grapevine” by Joel W. D. Buxton

“The Cold Burning Light of Her” by Sam W. Pisciotta

Reviewed by Axylus

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and a significant twist to pop up in the tale while reading “How to Set Up Your Mourning Robot,” flash fiction by Angela Liu. That didn’t really happen, but several details were interesting and mildly humorous. Plot: The title tells it all.

“In the Zone” by Lisa M. Bradley is a fairy tale devised and published as agitprop. In the author’s own words, it is a “wish-fulfillment fantasy” (see the interview, with its convenient links to relevant political organizations, at https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-lisa-m-bradley/). In this story, a Spanish-speaking female in Iowa named Yadira is able to magically reach through her laptop screen and rescue immigrants who face delays at the US border, foiling the evil actions of an irredeemably despotic and oppressive USonian (not American, as per author interview) government and its evil carceral agencies, the Border Patrol and ICE. Unfortunately, her magical gift is not yet fully developed or reliable, so she needs the help of her friends and a benevolent granny witch to iron out the glitches.

So a number of questions arise: Is political propaganda fair play in speculative fiction, and if so, what proportion or degree of a story can be propaganda while the whole thing is still fair play? Is it fair play for reviewers to discuss these questions? How do we gauge whether it’s devised and published as political propaganda? How can we decipher the intentions in a publisher’s heart? And how do we even get a handle on or define “fair play” in these contexts? Is it reasonable for me to refer to “In the Zone” as a fairy tale?

Above all else, politics is of course a valid and sometimes vital component of speculative fiction. Here we take on board the ghosts of George Orwell suggesting that all art is propaganda, and Joanna Russ observing that politics is essentially unavoidable (see “In Defense of Criticism” from her Books column in the November, 1979 issue of F&SF, also reprinted in The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction, 23rd Edition, Nov. 1981, and thanks to Dave Truesdale for pointing this out). Happily for me, we can also readily dispense with “is it fair play for reviewers to discuss politics?” simply by pointing at the cogent observations laid out by Russ in that article. It is instructive reading.

In earlier drafts of this review, I went through a long reductio ad absurdem thought experiment arguing that the publisher deliberately selected “In the Zone” solely to press a political agenda. But ahhh, screw it. All I gotta do is point to Protest 2025: Stories Against Tyranny. I rest my case. I am thinking the author (and the editors/publisher of Lightspeed) would wholeheartedly endorse the Julia Roberts quote that “Republican” is a word in the dictionary that comes “…just after reptile and just above repugnant.” And that’s fine, of course: different strokes for different folks. I personally have lost all admiration for the two-party system as it exists in the US; it has devolved into a shallow, manipulative, brainwashing, shadowy and shady self-parody of its alleged purpose and value. I am a living anachronism, a relic of the days when liberals and conservatives could disagree on all points, yet have lunch together with an honest smile.

But other matters remain. When does the propaganda outweigh the art so much that a work ceases to be art that contains propaganda, and becomes propaganda that contains art? If we pour a shot glass (or a thimbleful) of oolong tea into a pint mug of coffee, is it tea-flavored coffee, or coffee-flavored tea? Or is it simply coffee, and the seller implicitly hopes that consumers will purchase it as if it were tea-flavored? For this discussion, I would ask two questions. First, does a work of fiction demonize or dehumanize those who do not share the author’s views? If so, the lack of civil discourse makes it propaganda that contains art. Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. Second, if the characters’ politically-charged attributes, actions and/or statements were removed, would the structural, storytelling, and speculative aspects that remain still form a robust, expressive and compelling tale? If not, the resulting lack of a marketable storytelling experience makes it propaganda that contains art.

I’d like to suggest that a very strong case can be made that “In the Zone” is a simplistic fairy tale. Like any standard fairy tale, its narrative admits zero-point-zero space for moral complexity. It features sharply drawn, unwavering, unflinching distinctions between good and evil—and good here resides very firmly and unshakably within people who support the left-wing political rejection of border security. The protagonist, we should note, represents the bright, shiny side of the coin: impeccably noble and selfless, she works for nonprofits, sleeps on the floor so one transsexual immigrant she magically rescues could have her bed, and donates money to the point of eating only ramen for a month. Her noble spirit “couldn’t be distracted by personal concerns,” or as she says to an anti-ICE organization, “… I could file paperwork or run the vacuum for you. I’ll even clean the bathroom if that’s all you’ve got.” Her progressive street cred is buffed by the framed poster of Sylvia Rivera on her wall. Aside from her cost-free magic and hyperdrive progressive sainthood, however, her only other noteworthy personal detail appears to be her bipolar disorder. But if that were removed, the story’s sequence of events would not be materially different. Finally, her heroism is carried to its utmost degree when she and her friends are imbued with a pure, heavenly glow (the final and absolute seal of approval of whatever form of Supreme Being or Summum Bonum sits atop your belief system) at the story’s end as they rescue a young male immigrant:

“On the screen, a ring of golden sparks centered on the boy… Painless sparks flew as [Yadira’s] fingers pressed the screen, then passed through it. She cupped the boy’s cheek briefly…The gold ring expanded to a circle, and she moved her hand down to rest on his shoulder. The circle grew further, casting light on the walls and ceiling of the living room… ‘You’re doing it,’ Dulce, [the transsexual immigrant] whispered. “You’re really doing it. Dios mío, look, I’m glowing too!’… And the room lit up like dawn as she brought the boy home.”

That noble spirit she has also never permits or faces real-world questions or doubts that her actions could in any way be counterproductive, impractical, suboptimal, misguided, unsafe, or even just plain not a good idea. An earlier draft of this review also included true stories of how I (four decades and a full head of hair ago) worked in a homeless shelter for women for a couple years, how I let a couple homeless guys whom I did not previously know stay in my apartment for a couple days, etc. The outcomes of these tales were decidedly mixed. Moral of the story: life is complicated, and fairy tales are fairy tales. Writing polemical fiction that frames life as a political fairy tale is disingenuous at the very least.

Meanwhile, every hero must have a villain: the text of “In the Zone” parachutes in statements such as “[r]eading about the illegitimate president’s unconstitutional executive orders before bed more often than not left her with rage insomnia” and “…the country was still being led by a despot whose minions were ripping apart all social safety nets and vilifying helpless minorities.” Nuance be damned; full speed ahead! [Odd that a story which decries vilification uses its choicest adjectives during vilification.] This “paint with broad strokes” vilification is yet another reason this story qualifies as agitprop.

And again like any standard fairy tale, “In the Zone” does not boast anything vaguely near topnotch (or even midlist) creative or storytelling chops. There’s no dramatic arc or drama of any kind at any point, no character arc, no tension, no humor, no surprise ending or plot twist, no personal stakes of any kind for the protagonist. The dialog is unremarkable. The protagonist faces no real opposition or obstacle worse than a very brief, minor, painless learning curve. The latter hardly even qualifies as a speed bump; learning to code or to play violin would have been many, many times more difficult to manage. The magical ability she effortlessly discovers is part of a flimsy, token magic system that carries no personal price and creates no personal stakes in the tale. She merely stands or sits in front of a laptop screen, perhaps touching it, then spots appear before her eyes, and she can magically pull the hapless and oppressed immigrants through. The tale omits so many basic aspects of structure and storytelling that (in my humble opinion) its sole and only unique selling point and raison d’être is to stand high on a hilltop and vigorously wave the banner for strident, emphatically left-wing politics, while vilifying the political Other. Call me unobservant, if you wish, but I cannot see any other distinguishing characteristics that would make this story stand out from endless scores of others in any given slush pile. Yet Lightspeed gave it space to breathe on their pages.

And that’s a key point. Despite surface appearances, I am not piling on the author, Lisa Bradley. Instead, I am piling on Lightspeed. I strongly and even passionately support the author’s creative and expressive right to fashion a simple fairy tale (or even a complex novel or series of novels) that opposes border security and gives a big middle finger to the daddy party, the Republicans. But it should include one or more of: Personal stakes, preferably rising ones. Opposition. Meaningful conflict. Flawed characters. Moral complexity. Interesting and even compelling dialog. And the most basic element of all, arcs of creation and release of tension. Otherwise, it’s a fairy tale. And if it’s a political fairy tale that lauds and lionizes one group but disparages or demonizes another, then it’s agitprop.

I will say one positive thing for this tale: it is umpteen-million times better than the last story I reviewed from Strange Horizons, both in terms of fiction writing skill and in civil human discourse (believe it or not). But by publishing it, Lightspeed joins Strange Horizons as among the periodicals that employ lightweight (or in the case of Strange Horizons, aggressively malevolent as well as downright shitty) speculative fiction as window dressing in their efforts to disseminate their political opinions to the public, at the expense of the quality of the fiction itself, and thus the overall reading experience.

To my mind, truth and transparency in advertising is one hallmark of artistic integrity. With that in mind, I have a humble suggestion for John Joseph Adams, the publisher of Lightspeed—change the name of your publication. Call it Lightspeed: Relentlessly Left-Wing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Now that would be a genuine and unimpeachable act of honesty, integrity, and truth in advertising. But if you don’t wanna do that, then at least be an adult and own up to the 100% agitprop label for a nontrivial slice of what you have now. Because that shoe verily doth fit.

I loved the opening of “Elegy for Zephyr One” a science fiction novelette by Gene Doucette. Tension starts from the get-go in a debriefing of the protagonist by a corporate interviewer. The descriptions of daily life aboard the spaceship Zephyr One are amusing, right up until they become something else entirely. Both the protagonist and the Bad Guy are refreshingly interesting and… human, so to speak: not overwritten. The eventual showdown could perhaps have used a bit more emotion but it was definitely entertaining nonetheless. The ending was as well. This story is great. If there’s any problem here, it’s that I do think the editor should have taken a firm hand and drawn the reins on the author’s distracting habit of excessively peppering the text with random words in italics. That’s what editors earn the big bucks for, or so I’m told. [Just for fun, I removed all the words that were legitimately in italics—roughly 830, mainly in discrete blocks of italicized text. There were still around 260 italicized words remaining. Ouch.] Oh wait, now I also see unsightly and excessive comma usage. But the story is great. Definitely recommended. Plot: The crew of the spaceship Zephyr One receives a Priority Message with bizarre information that they at first laugh off, but when the truth eventually becomes clear, they find that their lives are at stake.

“Beneath the Umdlebe Tree; or, A Vegetable Love Story” a story by Modupeoluwa Shelle that’s at the high end of the flash fiction word count, is a worthwhile reading experience. Its length guarantees that some elements of the story will be omitted; still its tale of young love and betrayal as humans intermingle with various grotesque mythical species from African folklore has a welcome poetic tone. It mixes apocalyptic imagery with tender wistfulness, sketching the fate of humanity in the fate of a single lover. Plot: a grown man encounters his erstwhile lover, a mythical eloko, and tells her of his love and his fate as the Earth is ravaged by war. Definitely recommended.

“Visible Damage” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is a flash fiction tale that grew on me after reading. My initial reaction was a disappointed “meh” because of its quiet ending after an engaging opening and absorbing build-up. Later, I switched to “hmmm, well, yeah…” And later still I decided that I like it. In it, a disabled veteran of space wars with an alien race called the Drinzit is unable to afford a fully reconstructed synthetic body, so a museum makes him a deal: they will pay for everything, if he will work for them in a dual role as “both an artwork and a security guard.” His beautifully-reconstructed body serves an educational tool and a work of art, and he watches for visitor misbehavior. Then one day the visitors include the Drinzit ambassador and six of its larvae…

“How to Build a Homecoming Queen: A Guide by a Bad Asian Girl” by Tina S. Zhu is occasionally very entertaining in a Scott Pilgrim vs. the World sort of way (I’ve never seen Mean Girls, so I wouldn’t know if the two are similar). In general, the story sings when Zhu is recounting observations and insights from the teen world, and sags when she is stitching characters’ actions together into a workable plot. An expanded palette of protagonist goals, perhaps more clearly defined, with by extension an increased amount of conflict (broadly defined as any form of active or passive opposition to those goals), might have provided a booster shot for this problem. So subtract a few points from the semester score because the ending felt a bit rushed/condensed, and also because the middle section sagged somewhat, despite the story’s modest 5.8k word count. Recommended. Plot: A self-confessed (and self-centered) “Bad Asian Girl” named Connie Jin and her best friend June Lee create a sentient homunculus, an exact physical copy of Connie, using instructions found on the Internet. They name the body double Mulan and set her loose on an unsuspecting teen world, as the centerpiece of a vague plot to make Connie more popular and help her eventually escape her hometown. What could go wrong? Plenty, of course, but perhaps Connie can learn a few lessons about life as she navigates this social minefield.

“Operation: Grapevine” by Joel W. D. Buxton is either longish flash fiction or a short-short science fiction story. It takes a humorous tone as it describes a showdown with a sentient AI trying to take over the world.

“The Cold Burning Light of Her” by Sam W. Pisciotta is a flash fiction tale of a lonely girl’s attempt to create a golem of mud and sticks to be her friend. It has a touching ending. Recommended.