Spring 2020 (April);
-- specifically "The Mermaid Astronaut"

This was so amazingly good. It's part Little Mermaid retelling, part Girl Runs Away on an Adventure, all wrapped up in the gorgeous cosmos of space. I have a warm net woven around my heart about this story. I loved the way the Mers were described under the sea, how they were, how names happened, and choices. I loved how the spacefaring was handle, from the bottom up realistically, and how families are formed and mourned everywhere.

And I love, love, lvoe the retake on The Sea Witch, both previous to the space travel, and when she returns. The compassion and understanding, but, also, the price, and you continue to fill the roles that came before you, walking the steps of those who were just like you not so many turns of the wheel ago. ( )

So far only listened to:

-- The Mermaid Astronaut by Yoon Ha Lee - 2*
Interesting idea and I wanted to read it based on the title alone but I found the true story heavily weighed down by so many descriptions that I became annoyed. For such a "visual story" I may have benefited from reading it myself vs. listening.

And they took Essarala to the starbase’s zero-gravity gardens with their fantastic floating plants and intoxicatingly perfumed flowers, and clusters of lanterns that changed color according to the designer’s whimsy. After that, Ssen introduced her to other pleasures, from restaurants that served crisp honeyed insects to lounges where people traded poetry new and ancient, from cafes where one could pet small furry aliens who told one’s fortune to monuments where spacers carved the names of those who had been lost to pirates, or radiation, or other hazards.

Not least of all, Ssen took her to the observation deck of the starbase, where Essarala caught her breath at the sight of the stars all around them, as though everyone lived inside a constellation of splendors. Ssen told her the names of the brightest stars and the peoples who lived on their worlds and visits they had made in times past.

ymmv