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.