SPECULATIVE LOS ANGELES

Perhaps the technical highlight in this dark and challenging collection of 14 post apocalyptic short stories by some of the West Coast's brightest literary talents is award-winning narrator Gabrielle de Cuir's use of a robot voice in "Walk of Fame" by Duane Swierczynski. She sounds like a machine--but so very human at the same time. Hard to do. There's a tough noir style to all the narration in these tales of changelings and ghosts, steampunks, and cops and robots--all set in a gray, decaying future Los Angeles. The final story goes against the grain, with Justine Eyre's voice breaking the listener's heart in "Sailing That Beautiful Sea" by Kathleen Kaufman, about the last woman left in Century City. Fresh and gritty. B.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2021]