Listened to two stories from this edition:

~ Amorville (2017) by Bella Han on Clarkesworld/Spotify - 1.5*

Translated from Chinese.
There are breaks in the story that do not carry over to an audio reading in any way.



We are in a futuristic world where our MC is financially on the edge. There is lots of talk like "if I get that, I won't be able to eat real meat next month", etc.. but expensive technology is everywhere including her "google glasses" and she spends most of her not-working, or not-sleeping time in her virtual reality pod. She spends time with a man in there. Is the man real or not? He wasn't supposed to be. I'm clueless about what they did in the VR pod but but oh boy she was in love.

Either the original author is ambiguous or the translator is. (ETA: translated by the author I see on Clarkesworld.com) I would not read another story by him/her nor recommend this one.
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Previously listened to Dave's Head by Suzanne Palmer - DNF

I got just about half way through but had zero interest by that point. During this pandemic I admit my tolerance is low but I couldn't engage with the story.

Here is the synopsis from the internet: "Cassie takes care of her uncle, a former smart animatronics engineer now suffering dementia, and his animatronic dinosaur named Dave, who thinks he's a real dinosaur. When Dave suggests a road trip the consequences may end up costing everyone more than they can afford."