Penny Preston and the Raven's Talisman (Misaligned #1), by Armen Pogharian (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

CamCat Publishing LLC, April 2021

Penny Preston is just trying to figure out what the mist-figures in the corridor outside the school cafeteria are and what they're doing, when she accidentally opens a transdimensional rift and starts a food fight. It's not any great surprise that, though it takes a bit longer than she expected, she's soon enough sitting in the office of Mr. Myrdin.

It is a surprise that she's not there to be disciplined for starting the food fight. Two other students have been blamed for that, and being as unaware as everyone else of Penny's involvement, they've accepted it. No, Penny is there because the only other person who noticed the strange creatures is Mr. Myrdin. He wants to talk to her about the fact that she's "misaligned," existing in more than just the usual three dimensions, and thus an important key to stop transdimensional beings from attacking and destroying our universe.

Burn, or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super, by A.T. Greenblatt

Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2020

This is, just like it says on the tin, an episodic account of the life of a new Super, Sam Wells. His superpower is pretty marginal. He can create fire, and while it burns his hair, and his clothes, it doesn't burn his flesh. He's perfectly safe from fire.

But it's not a superpower that has a lot of practical use, in the superhero sense.

We follow Sam through getting accepted into the Super club, learning that since is superpower isn't one that especially useful on Main Team, the ones that go out and save people's lives and interfere with disasters trying to happen, his new job will be the same as his old job--accountant.

A Cowboy Kind of Love, by Donna Grant

St. Martin's Press, ISBN 9781250250094, April 2021

Jace Wilder and Taryn Hillman were in love--and then disaster fell on them.

Ever since her mother's death, Taryn had worked to keep her family together, functional, and out of trouble--with only mediocre success. Her father and brother were working for a drug lord, and one awful night, the drug lord descended on them, and announced they were all--her father, her brother Ben, her younger sister Payton, and Taryn herself, coming with him.

They were all going to work for him, selling drugs, to pay off the debts her father had incurred. She persuaded the drug lord, Boyd Walters, to keep her sister out of it, if she earned twice as much, and she succeeded. Even after Boyd kills her father and brother, she's still doing it, to keep Payton safe. But now she wants to get Payton and herself out altogether, and she's cut a new deal with Boyd. It means going back to Clearview, and she might run into Jace, but she has to do it.

Jace has been trying to patch up his wound, both from Taryn's sudden departure with her family, with only a single text to tell him she wouldn't be back, and his years in the Afghanistan war. It hasn't been working, and lately he's been doing too much drinking, and he doesn't know whether it's the alcohol, hallucination, or reality, when he thinks he sees Taryn in town again.

Two Truths and a Lie, by Sarah Pinsker

Tor.com, June 2020

Stella, while home on a visit after years away from her hometown, attends the funeral of an old friend's older brother, and agrees to help him clean out the brother's house. He was a serious hoarder, and Stella is glad she only committed to one day of the exhausting and disturbing experience. One thing we need to know about Stella is that she has a habit of making up lies, not for any particular reason, but simply to see if people believe her.. When she asks her friend, Marco, if he remembers a Saturday morning kids' show called The Uncle Bob Show, she expects him to say he doesn't, because she made it up.

But he does remember it. His brother, Denny, was on it, more than once. The tapes of those episodes are among the "treasures" Marco has uncovered so far, and he starts playing them. It's not your normal Saturday morning kids' show, and Stella is creeped out.

A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2), by Arkady Martine (author), Amy Landon (narrator)

Tor, ISBN 9781529001662, March 2021

Three months have passed since the end of A Memory Called Empire, and Mahit Dzmare, who had decided she couldn't stay in Teixcalaan, has found that she can't really go home again, either. Lsel Station is not a friendly and welcoming place for someone who has absorbed so much Teixcalaan culture, and who, oops, has not one but two imagos of the previous Ambassador, Yskandr, in her head. The Minister for Heritage wants Mahit in her lab to upload her imago for future generations, and when she finds out for sure what Mahit has done, it's not likely Mahit is going to survive that.

The Minister for Pilots is very annoyed with her and not inclined to help. The Minister for Mining has made her what's a really bad offer even if Mahit believed he'd keep his promise. When Three Seagrass shows up, managing to cause more trouble in the process, but asking Mahit, as Ambassador to Teixcalaan, to accompany her to what's going to be a really difficult negotiation in the middle of a war zone, Mahit decides it is, at least, the best offer available.

Monster, by Naomi Kritzer

Clarkesworld, #160, January 2020

Cecily is traveling to a remote area of China, looking for an old friend who has disappeared there. Andrew was her first real friend, the first one who appreciated her nerdiness rather than just overlooking it, the one who drew her into a circle of nerdy friends. They drifted apart after she got into a much better college than he did, but years later, he contacts her again. She's a successful scientist; he isn't. At least, not in the conventional sense. He's interested in her research, and she gives him one of her published papers.

A Guide for Working Breeds, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Published in Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, edited by Jonathan Strahan; publisher Solaris, March 2020

This is a cute story about a robot newly activated and assigned to a contract job, and an older robot, who has paid off his construction costs and is now independent, acting as the new robot's mentor, and giving him practical advice about functioning in the world. The advice includes such basic, practical guidance as figuring out that the new robot, who has not yet chosen a name, is seeing dogs everywhere because he's got a virus, and how to remove it. It also, when the new robot, who eventually chooses the name "Kleekai Greyhound," gets assigned a job in a diner and has to figure out what his boss means in telling him to "be mean" to the customers.

There is some cute back and forth, and as is obvious from the name adopted, the young robot retains his interest in dogs after the virus is gone. Its mentor, who goes by "Constant Killer," is slowly, unwillingly, charmed by its mentee.

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (The Murderbot Diaries #4.5) by Martha Wells

Tor, April 2021 (original publication May 2020)

This is a short story, more of a vignette, a linking scene between Exit Strategy and Network Effect. It's interesting, enjoyable, and provides something we don't get in most Murderbot stories: it's from Dr. Ayda Mensah's viewpoint. We see the PTSD she's suffering from after the events of Exit Strategy from the inside, rather than Murderbot's working it out from observation.

It's a very interesting, useful story if you are a reader of the Murderbot Diaries, and probably not at all a good introduction to the series if you haven't. In that case, you should go find All Systems Red, the first one, and start there. You won't regret it.

Recommended for those who are already fans of the series. I bought this story.

Open House on Haunted Hill, by John Wiswell

Diabolical Plots #64A, June 2020

This is a remarkably sweet haunted house story.

133 Poisonwood Avenue has been vacant for longer than it is happy with, and when a real estate agent hosts an open house, it's really hoping that at least one family will decide they like it.

Those who come to the open house include some real duds, notably the guy who is apparently only interested in the fact that the wallpaper in one room was not applied perfectly. He's only one among those who leave with clearly no intention of making a offer.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4), by Becky Chambers

Harper Voyager, ISBN 9780062936042,  April 2021

This is the fourth, and apparently final, book in Becky Chambers' wonderful Wayfarers series. The series is set in the Galactic Commons, a federation of sapient species in the galaxy, of which humans are one of the newest and least important members. 

In this book, as in A Closed and Common Orbit, humans are more peripheral characters. The central characters are two Laru (a marsupial-like species), a Quelin (arthropod-like), an Akarak (a small, bird-like species that doesn't breathe oxygen, and uses a bipedal environment suit), and an Aeluon (bipedal, scaled, bald, and communicate through color patches on their cheeks--somewhat analogous to cephalopods, who also use the ability to change color in various ways to communicate.)

Gora is a world with no water, only a thin atmosphere, no life, no valuable resources--unremarkable except for being at the nexus of five wormholes that provide transport to far more interesting places. It's a busy hub, and the main, or rather only, industry on Gora is providing hospitality, supplies, and maintenance to the crews and ships passing through. Few visitors hang around long, until an accident among the communication satellites in orbit around Gora.