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Summer Frost

Forward collection

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Summer Frost

Written by: Blake Crouch
Narrated by: Rosa Salazar
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Audible narration by Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel)

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.

©2019 Blake Crouch (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Adventure Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Technology Thriller Artificial Intelligence
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What the critics say

"Rosa Salazar provides a dead-on, almost eerie, performance of an AI in this short science fiction story...altering her performance as the AI refines and reinvents itself throughout the story. It's a startling evolution of character, driven home by Salazar’s transition from passive dialogue to gut-punching directness. The story challenges what it means to be human and gives sci-fi listeners some poignant moments to ponder long after the credits end." --AudioFile magazine

"…a sensational project...." --Spine Magazine

“This is exactly how I like my techno-anxiety.... Happy bingeing!" --Audible, an October Editors Pick

All stars
Most Relevant
Blake Crouch is a phenomenal writer. I was completely mesmerized by the story from start to finish. Is the concept new? No. Is it still terrifying as fuck? Yeah.

Wow

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was not expecting this much of a story in just a 2-hour listen, it was a huge surprise and packed with anticipation

pleasant surprise

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Spoilers of the theme not the details


I have loved all of Blake’s books. This was a major disappointment, used a credit not realizing it’s a short story was the first one. It seems like a total rip off of Ex Machina, I get the there is overlap on these types of stories but it seemed too close. I really didn’t like the pronoun stuff with the AI. Max says it’s not a man or woman, how does that make it a plural pronoun of they? When she corrected the midgendering of the AI I wanted to turn it off. Yes clearly my personal views of this cultural phenomenon are the reason for that but it seemed too far. I’ll keep listening/reading Blake’s books but this was a flop for me.

Disappointed

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