Coming Out Party, by Nikki Levy (author, narrator), Shangela (narrator), Jake Borelli (contributor, narrator), Nicky Paris (ontributor, narrator), Daniel Webb (contributor, narrator), Rosanny Zayas (contributor, narrator), Angelica Ross (contributor, narrator), Lisa Dickey (contributor, narrator)

Audible Originals, June 2020

This is just a very lively, enjoyable, warm listen.

It is, as the title suggests, a collection of coming out stories, released in celebration of Pride Month. Included are stories of first love, telling parents, coming out in one's work life, surviving Navy service during "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," coming out in response to a question from Barack Obama in a BBQ joint. The stories are all very personal and compelling, and the tellers of them are peronalities who just reach out and make you care.

And in the irony of our time, some of these stories were literally recorded in the closet, as the COVID-19 pandemic kept people in their homes, surrounded by family or housemates. Some of them litereally had no place quiet enough to record except in a well-chosen closet!

It's a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

I received this audiobook free as part of the Audible Originals program, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley

Saga Press, ISBN 9781481447966, March 2019

Dietz is new recruit in the Tene-Sylvia corporate forces, having enlisted to fight the Martians after everyone they know has been killed in the Blink, presumed to have been committed by the Martians, which wiped out much of São Paolo.

Military forces have a new way of deploying their forces now. The soldiers are transformed into light, and rematerialize at their destination. Which is fine, until Dietz starts experiencing drops that are very different from the rest of the squad, and witnessing and participating in a very different war.

Is Dietz crazy? Is Dietz traveling in time? Is Dietz crossing timelines?

Can Dietz do something about the war?

Summer Frost (Forward Collection), by Blake Crouch (author), Rosa Salazar (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, September 2019

Riley is a video game developer, working on the problem of an oddly recalcitrant non-player character in her current project. After a good bit of work, she manages to extract the code and work on that character--which seems to be developing into an AI.

The character is Maxine, or Max, as she is usually called, whose only role in the game is to be killed by her husband in a bloody, ritual sacrifice that kicks off the game. Riley thinks this can be developed into a very capable and interesting AI. And as she continues to work on Max, she begins to get very involved with Max. Her marriage suffers, she's working on no other projects at all--and her boss is finding it increasingly dubious. Riley starts to wonder what will happen if the increasingly intelligent Max ever gets out into the real world.

The Last Conversation (Forward), by Paul Tremblay (author), Steven Strait (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, September 2019

A man wakes up in an unfamiliar, dark room, with no memory of who he is or how he got there.

There's a voice, his caretaker, Dr. Kuhn, who will help him remember who he is and recover his physical health.

He slowly gets stronger, the pain goes, his sight returns, and he is starting to recover his memories. Yet, something is wrong. Dr. Kuhn won't answer some questions, questions that seem perfectly reasonable and straightforward. He does learn there's been a pandemic, and a lot of people died.

Ark (Forward Collection), by Veronica Roth (author), Evan Rachel Wood (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, September 2019

A large asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, with destruction of life on Earth the certain result. With enough warning, two ships have been built to move humans and the life they need to survive off the planet.

Samantha is a young scientist cataloging plants to accompany the evacuating humans. With just a few weeks to go, she has her own private plans for what she'll do when she's supposed to board the ship she's assigned  to.

Then, unexpectedly, she makes a real, human connection with one of the older scientists, who loves orchids as she does, and as her mother did.

It's a touching and moving story. Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

You Have Arrived at Your Destination (Forward Collection), by Amor Towles (author), David Harbour (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, September 2019

Sam and his wife, Annie, are finally ready to have a child. Having worked and planned to give their child the best possible start, they've decided to also take one more step. They're going to use Vitek, the newest and most advanced fertility lab, one that will let you not only pick the sex of your child, and avoid known genetic problems, but something more. Something better, they promise.

You can pick the right balance of your gene's and your spouse's, and view projections of the probable life pattern of each of three different genetic balances.

What could be better?

But when Sam, watching the projections of three different lives of their prospective son, "Daniel," he starts asking questions about the choices he's made in his own life. And a stop at a nearby bar leads to even more disturbing questions.

It's an interesting, thoughtful story. Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, by Ted Chiang

Published in Exhalation, Knopf, May 2019

Quantum computing has changed the world--by enabling people to communicate with other versions of themselves, on alternate timelines. This is done through devices called "prisms." Any given prism can only reach a timeline that split off after it was first activated.

Nat is a young woman with a somewhat troubled past, who is now drug-free, and working in what one might call a "prism cafe," where people who can't afford their own prisms can communicate with their "paraselves" on other timelines. This is a dying business model, because the price of prisms has come way, way down.

Her boss, Morrow, has worked out ways to make money anyway.

The big question is, though, does communicating with other timelines and seeing the results of other choices you might have made, help or hurt? 

A Dead Djinn in Cairo, by P. Djèlí Clark (author), Suehyla El-Attar (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, August 2019 (original publication May 2016)

In an alternate Cairo in 1912, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Superatural Entities investigates potentially criminal activity involving magic or supernatural entities, such as djinn.

Such as, in this case, a Marid djinn who appears to have committed suicide, in a very odd way.

Special Agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi is the agent who got the case, and nothing about it looks right. Suicide isn't common among djinn. Magical exsanguination seems like an incredibly unlikely way to do it. There is evidence of a ghoul being present, but ghouls eat their victims alive, not drink their blood. She and the constable find evidence suggesting a tie an, um, not really an angel but they mostly go with that term, they investigate and find one who calls himself Maker, and is a maker of timepieces, and it doesn't seem at all relevant.

Nut Jobs: Cracking California's Strangest $10 Million Dollar Heist, by Marc Fennel (author, narrator)

Audible Studios, June 2020

Marc Fennel is an Australian reporter who came to the US to do an Audible Original story on nut heists.

Yes, nut heists. Thefts of almonds and other nuts, grown in California, and sold all over the world at a very high profit.

The high profit margin means there's a lot of incentive to steal truckloads of nuts and sell them elsewhere. And loads of raw nuts, not yet processed and packaged, are really hard to distinguish from each other, whether stolen or legit.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark

Tor.com, ISBN 9781250294807, February 2019

Senior Agent Hamed al-Nasr, and his new partner, brand-new Agent Onsi, of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, are called in to investigate the haunting of a Cairo tram car.

This is, of course, not out Cairo. This is Cairo in the first part of the 20th century, and on a different timeline than ours. In 1879, a man bored through the wall separating our world from the world of the djinn, in the process weakening the wall between the worlds everywhere. Egypt was the first beneficiary, for good and ill, and European powers were driven out. Egypt became a constitutional monarchy. And like the UK, they have an active women's suffrage movement.

So back to the haunted tram car. They quickly determine that it's not a ghost causing the problem. That's no surprise. The Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities has never found any ghosts, no matter how much people believe they exist. It's something else, most likely some variety of djinn.