101. Lonely Magnolia by John Isaac Jones

listened on Audible Escape, a novella
narrated by Tom Zainea
Unabridged audio (1:06)
2017, audio only, I think
50 pgs. (just a guess...)
Adult CRF with teeny tiny touch of fantasy...or not....
Finished 6/28/20
Goodreads rating: 4.27 - 15 ratings
My rating: 2

My comments: A founding father of the technology era goes online dating to find a partner for the rest of his life.  It backfires in that - SPOILER!!! - what he ended up with, his choice of mate, was an AI he had created long ago and forgotten about.  It ended up driving him mad, lol.  A decent idea, I wish it had been better executed. 

Goodreads synopsis:  When famous computer genius Dr. Carl Wingate decides to find a new wife online, it not only rocks the very foundations of the digital industry itself, but it turns his personal life completely upside-down. This is the story of Pygmalion for the 21st century.

106. Summer Frost by Blake Crouch

listened on Audible
narrated  by Rosa Salazar
Unabridged audio (2:19)
2019, Amazon Original Stories
75 pgs.
Adult SciFi
Finished 10/27/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.10 - 4795 ratings
My rating:  1
Setting: Dystopian San Francisco

First line/s:  "I watched her steal the Maserati twenty minutes ago in broad daylight from the Fairmont Hotel."

My comments:   This was a short story from a collection of six, and I didn't really like it.  Maybe because it was so short it didn't flesh out the plot enough, so I didn't follow some of it.  Oh well, this is an author I really enjoy and this won't put me off for another.  Maybe I'll try listening again when I'm in a different mood?

Goodreads synopsis:  A video game developer becomes obsessed with a willful character in her new project, in a mind-bending exploration of what it means to be human by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.
          Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?
          Blake Crouch’s Summer Frost is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

102. Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

#2 Arc of a Scythe
listened on my iPhone, purchased on Audible
narrated by Greg Tremblay
Unabridged audio (13:02)
2018 Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
513 pgs.
YA Dystopia/Fantasy
Finished 10/19/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.52 - 42,389 ratings
My rating: 5

First line/s:  "How fortunate I am among the sentient to know my purpose.  I serve human kind.  I am the child who has become the parent.  The creations that aspires towards creator."

My comments:  In the year after Citra and Rowan become scythes, Rowan is on the run, killing scythes that are not doing their gleaning fairly, and Citra has created her own way to compassionately do her job.  There's a new protagonist, Grayson, who is a particularly good person and we hear a lot from the Thunderhead, the artificial intelligence that runs everything and everyone on the planet except for the scythes.  In the ultimate battle between good and bad we have to wait for the final chapter knowing that the bad are on the winning side.  What a tense, thrilling journey is this book!  Glad I don't have to wait too long for the final installment.

Goodreads synopsis:  Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.
          Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?