Starlings

De: Jo Walton

Narrado por: C.S.E. Cooney, Rudy Sanda

An ancient coin cyber-spies on lovers and thieves. The magic mirror sees all but can do nothing. A cloned savior solves a fanatically-inspired murder. Three Irish siblings thieve treasures with bad poetry and the aid of the Queen of Cats.

With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic-rising from the every day into the universe itself.

©2017 Jo Walton (P)2019 Tantor

Jo Walton's first short fiction collection

This is a collection of fantasy, science fiction, and poetry. There's a play. It's Jo Walton's first short fiction collection, and it's a delight.

There's a generation starship story, with a generation in the middle of the voyage forming new ideas about what the plan should be when their descendants reach their destination. Will they really all want to be farmers and builders and the scientists needed for colonization on the world? What about the unique arts that have developed in space? Can they avoid forcing their own decisions on those descendants?

An angel welcomes newcomers to Heaven, and explains why the angels meeting the newcomers are all of alien species--and the complexities of being an angel assigned to oversee an area on a planet that wasn't originally, your own.

There's a dark, alternate history story, in an America where FDR was defeated for reelection by Lindbergh, an America that went to war against Britain, not Germany, an America where soup lines don't necessarily lead to soup.

The play concerns a conflict among heroes out of Irish mythology, and an effort to resolve it by collecting treasures out of other mythologies, all over the world. It's a much lighter, happier, more positive story.

These and other stories and poetry make for an excellent listening experience, and is excellently read by the two narrators.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.