Summer Frost

This is part of the Amazon Prime ‘Forward Collection' curated by Crouch. In my quest to get more and more into his work, I grabbed this one for free with my prime membership. It's available for both kindle reading and audible audio. 
I truly feel as if Blake Crouch is not respected enough as a writer, researcher, and creator. Everything scifi that he releases is so incredibly detailed and researched to the point where you don't even have to question if it's real or not. It doesn't feel like it needs debating. This one even broke down how many hours of HGTV would fit into the amount of stored data needed. I thought it was a great touch. 
This is a short about an NPC going rogue, breaking from its programming, and then becoming sentient. All while its creator becomes deeply obsessed with it. It reads like a mix of Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller's ‘Otherworld' and Alex Garland's ‘Ex Machina' as Crouch navigates the future of VR interfacing and gaming, and the nature of what it means to be human. 
Genuinely gripping, and one hell of a ride for such a short story. Personally a 5/5*, and the narration by Rosa Salazar was very good!