Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

Where in every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Here we are, season 6 and they said it wouldn't last.

We are really humming along.

As always, I am really excited about the stories this season.

There's a lot of humanity, I think, in the stories that we've selected this season.

More than anything, I just think we continue to get better at this podcast thing.

I do hope you're enjoying.

Today's story is by the speculative fiction author and futurist Elizabeth Bear.

Now, Elizabeth Bear is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus and Campbell Award-winning author of Dozens of Novels.

She's got over a hundred short stories to her credit and many other works of nonfiction.

And her newest book, The First of Atrylogy, is called The Stone and The Skull.

This particular story won the Hugo Award in 2008 and you can find it in the best of Elizabeth Bear.

It follows ascension military robot who has survived her human comrades in a post-war world.

This is not, however, a story about battles and destruction.

When I read this story, I think about humans and robots working together, about a spritical

core about prioritizing others' needs before our own about remembrance.

It's a gorgeously written story and I hope you enjoy it.

It is, I will say, full disclaimer, a bit melancholy, but then again, so are our times.

I know a lot of us are in our feelings these days.

And so this is a story that I think is appropriate to the moment.

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