I really liked this story.
I saw Amaechi's transformation (from a person fixated with doing whatever the hell it takes to fulfill her dream into someone who actually learns to love what she is doing) from miles away. And looking back at it, in retrospect, the transformation appeared to be slightly forced and not smooth at all.
But while I was listening to it, it seemed to me to be the most smooth and natural thing in the world. I was so caught up in the story, identified so well with Amaechi that when it happened it took me a little by surprise. I loved it.
Maybe it's because I, like so many others, have found myself often enough doing something I didn't like or even hated just to achieve something else but then starting to enjoy the journey.
And the story.... wow.
Unknown, possibly hostile aliens terraforming (is it called terraforming if you don't make it like Terra?) planets and nobody knowing why. Yes, it's an old trope, but it's one that I happen to like.
The author cleverly avoided the it-was-all-a-misunderstanding trope and the bipedal-aliens trope. Also the architecture of the aliens suited their physiology and mindset. Basically square shaped corridors are nice, but there really is no reason to make them if you would rather use the walls. Four walls for climbing on makes much more sense that just two. This basically means that each corridor is actually four corridors. If I had to film it for TV or a movie I'd change those to hexagonal corridors, so my actors could walk along them, and we'd still have 4 walls. Also hexagons stack nicely together (honeycombs). But making a 4-walled corridor without a ceiling or a floor takes less resources, so makes more sense to these aliens. I love consistency in my stories.
In fact, when Norm had said that this week's author was a scientist by training and profession I said to myself "Oh good. No silly physics mistakes in this story, and it will probably make internal sense as well." I'm very glad I wasn't disappointed.
To summarize: this was an excellent story of a person growing and becoming more than she was when she first started, coming to terms with herself as a person and what she was doing with her life and what she wanted from it. All that wrapped up in a wonderful bit of science fiction that actually had enough to stand up on its own.
Two thumbs way, way up.