Lightspeed #178, March 2025“Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library” by Cadwell Turnbull
“Pure of Heart” by Jake Kerr
“Memories of Temperance” by Anya Ow
“Those Who Seek to Embrace the Sun” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
“Message in a Babel” by Adam-Troy Castro
“The Shift” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition” by Rachael K. Jones
“The Lexicon of Lethe” by Sunwoo Jeong
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
The lead character in “Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library” by Cadwell Turnbull lives in the immense book depository mentioned in the title. (There is an obvious nod to the famous story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges, but otherwise the two works are dissimilar.) He is able to enter the universes described in the books he reads. On one such journey, he meets a fortune teller who offers an enigmatic reading. After he returns to the library, his android servant reveals some of the truth about the books and their creator.
This is a mysterious story that deals with themes of creation, literature, and deity in an ambiguous way. By the end, the protagonist still does not understand everything about himself and his library. Readers who don’t mind a degree of opacity in fiction will best appreciate this moody and evocative tale.
In “Pure of Heart” by Jake Kerr, a woman seeks out a demon in order to bargain for the power to obtain revenge. The ability to destroy and the price she must pay for it are linked in an unexpected way.
This brief story reads like a dark fairy tale. It can be interpreted as an allegory for the dangerous power of hate. The reader learns very little about the woman and why she seeks vengeance, so the work is more successful as a fable than as a fully developed story.
“Memories of Temperance” by Anya Ow features a pair of women who have died but who have refused, in different ways and for different reasons, to be reincarnated. Their conversation leads one of them to understand more about her own motives.
The author creates an intriguing fantasy based on themes from Buddhism. Flashbacks offer depth of character. The setting, a realm where those who are not reborn dwell, is vividly realized through the use of both fantastic and mundane details.
“Those Who Seek to Embrace the Sun” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe is narrated by the group mind of a large number of alien spaceships, never used by the beings who created them, discovered on a giant planet by humans searching for a way to escape a doomed Earth. The premise of this very short tale is fascinating, but the work’s brief length makes it more of a mood piece than a complete story.
“Message in a Babel” by Adam-Troy Castro takes the form of a series of documents, each one encrypted in very complex ways. The surface text varies from ordinary letters to warnings of alien invasions, but the implication is that this is merely a way to hide deeper messages.
This quirky work might be seen as an intellectual exercise, an example of unrestrained imagination, or an extended joke. Readers should not expect to find any true meaning in the documents, which may be the author’s intended theme.
In “The Shift” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, the youngest son of a deceased king and his sorceress mother use magical disguises in order to accompany his sister, who is being sent to marry another monarch. The three ponder whether to remain in this new land or return home.
This synopsis fails to mention the story’s main fantasy premise, which is the fact that the son is changed into a woman during the journey. Not much is done with the transgender theme, and this brief work is really just a fairy tale with a few minor plot twists.
“Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition” by Rachael K. Jones features a dog left alone on a spaceship when the crew disappears while exploring a planet. The story is very short, and there is no real plot, as the situation is apparent from the start and does not change. It will appeal most to those who are particularly fond of canine companions.
At slightly under eight thousand words, “The Lexicon of Lethe” by Sunwoo Jeong is the issue’s only novelette. Three friends discover that a strange being is making words disappear.
Despite the story’s length, this brief synopsis is sufficient. This is because the bulk of the text deals with the inner lives and relationships of the characters. The author is truly gifted at characterization, making the three protagonists seem very real. The fantasy premise is never fully explained, and other details (such as the seemingly magical properties of the mustard seeds one of the characters gives to people) remain obscure.
Victoria Silverwolf prefers feline companions.