Category: stories

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“Maximum Efficiency” by Holly Schofield now out in Analog!

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SF Canada member Holly Schofield’s fourth story for Analog, “Maximum Efficiency”, is now out in the Nov/Dec issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine! The story involves a robot trying to make sense of the world:

Servos whining, K3RA crouches behind the brambles and examines the farmyard. The burnt remains of a house, not unusual post-Devastation. A handpump next to a rotting well cover, scattered trash, and, jutting above some flowering bushes, a small auxiliary building.

There is nothing overtly dangerous about the scene but better to run all functioning scans before approaching: even seven-foot androids trained to fight renegades can’t be too careful. Not out here, miles from the barricades, badly damaged, and armed with only a broken tree branch.

This issue also contains a “Biolog” of Holly, a one-page interview by Richard A. Lovett.

You can find the print version of the Nov/Dec 2022 issue of Analog in most bookstores that carry science fiction, and you can start a subscription in digital or print at analogsf.com.

Over one hundred of Holly’s short stories appear in publications throughout the world including Lightspeed and Escape Pod, are used in university curricula, and have been translated into multiple languages. She is currently a fiction editor at Solarpunk Magazine and hopes to save the world through science fiction and homegrown heritage tomatoes. Find her at hollyschofield.wordpress.com.

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Michèle Laframboise’s “I’ll be Moon for Christmas” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction!

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SF Canada member Michèle Laframboise’s latest story, “I’ll Be Moon for Christmas”, lends a wistful holiday air to the Nov/Dec issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.

On the stage, four jazzmen undulated like pale algae fronds, sending up blues notes in the stale air of the Ribald Café.

The long moody harmonics spouted from the brass instruments joined the blue smoke ghosts rising from the make-believe cigs most patrons were using. The musicians were playing pitch perfect, of course, an instrumental rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” an oldie that always made the younger ones among us smile.

The interior decor was doing its best to make us forget where we were: lustrous vermilion drapes framing the scene, glossy leafy plants in every unused corner, the ceiling painted in a trompe-l’oeil illusion of rising skyrises through a glass roof, even with random flocks of pale gray doves flying overhead. The scents that mingled with the false tobacco were the typical blends of true coffee beans.

Read a longer excerpt here and subscribe to Asimov’s here.

This is Michele’s fourth story for Asimov’s. Read more about it at her website!

 

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“Immaterial Witness” by Graham J. Darling

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SF Canada member Graham J. Darling’s latest publication is “Immaterial Witness”. This hard SF/Fantasy/Horror/Courtroom Drama story appears in the Halloween Special 2022 issue of Dark Matter Magazine— even the latest forensic technologies don’t always work the way we’d hope!

Find more of Graham’s work at  fiction.GrahamJDarling.com and find the Halloween issue at Dark Matter.

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Nothing Without Us Too now available!

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SF member Cait Gordon is excited about her latest editing project. The Nothing Without Us Too anthology is officially released in ebook and paperback! This multi-genre collection contains stories by SFC members Bernadette Gabay Dyer and Holly Schofield along with 25 other tales. It follows the theme of Nothing Without Us (a 2020 Prix Aurora Award finalist), featuring more stories by authors who are disabled, d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing, Blind or visually impaired, neurodivergent, Spoonie, and/or who manage mental illness. The lived experiences of their protagonists are found across many demographics—such as race, culture, financial status, religion, gender, age, and/or sexual orientation. Cait and co-editor Talia Johnson want to present these stories because diversity is reality, and it belongs in literary and genre fiction.

So, whether you’re being welcomed to Sensory Hell by hotel staff, witnessing a stare-down between a convenience store worker and an arrogant vampire, or unsure if your social media account is magic, these tales can teleport you elsewhere yet resonate deep within.

Nothing Without Us Too is available from Renaissance Press and through https://49thshelf.com/Books/N/Nothing-Without-Us-Too

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Short story by Melanie Marttila published in Pirating Pups!

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SF Canada member Melanie Marttila’s short story, “Torvi, Viking Queen,” was recently published in Tyche Books‘ Pirating Pups anthology. Edited by Rhonda Parrish and SFC member Margaret Curelas, the anthology contains thirteen daring “tails” of dogs, puns, and fun!

Enter a world of Barking Buccaneers, where piratical dogs sail the seas, seeking one tail-chasing adventure after another. Whether dealing with sea monsters, the doldrums, or bitter betrayal, these dogs have a true nose for adventure and always dig up their buried treasure.

Pirating Pups is available in a variety of formats at Tyche Books.

Melanie blogs at melaniemarttila.ca and lives in Sudbury, Ontario, with spouse and dog, in the house where three generations of her family have lived, on the street that bears her family name.

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“Boomer Trap” by Dale L. Sproule

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Dale L. Sproule’s latest publication is “Boomer Trap” appearing now in Dark Recesses Webzine!

Dale L. Sproule has over 50 published stories and hundreds of articles, interviews, and poems. His work has most recently appeared in The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir; That is SO Wrong; Emanations 9; Theme of Absence and The Colored Lens. He is the author of four books; short story collections Psychedelia Gothique and Psychedelia Noir and the novels The Human Template and Escape from the Carnivorous Forest (Oct 2022).

His website is dalelsproule.com and his blog is dlsproule.blogspot.com