AGENTS OF DREAMLAND by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan is that rare work of fiction so gripping, complex, and disturbing that it begs to be read a second time, both to savor the exquisite writing and to look for subtleties, clues, and references that may have been overlooked the first time.
When the novella begins, the agent known only as the Signalman, a cynical hard-drinking operative on the trail of a cult leader, is arriving in Winslow, Arizona. There he meets with the enigmatic Immacolata Sexton, a woman whose cryptic, hard-as-nails exterior is later belied by small future acts of compassion toward the suffering denizens of a doomed Los Angeles. Sexton is a time traveler; we follow her from Vermont in 1927, where she examines evidence of an alien spacecraft, to the American southwest and a desperate, present-day race to stop a horrific plague, then to a future Los Angeles where alien ships rule the sky and the few human inhabitants eke out a pitiable existence.
All Kiernan’s characters are memorable; for me, the most vivid was a confused, lost young woman named Chloe, who’s been goomed by cult leader Drew Standish to become a key member of the Children of the Next Level. Chloe’s lurid, drug-addled past makes her a perfect, if tragic, foil for indoctrination by madman Standish.
To be fair, Agents of Dreamland is not for everyone (but what great fiction is?). Some may find it too pervasively dark or too graphic in its depiction of body horror. Some may wish for a more traditional, less unsettling ending, especially at a time in history when the idea of ecological disaster, alien or otherwise, seems all too likely.
As Kiernan writes, “The haunted human psyche craves resolution…humans, inherent problem solvers that we are, chafe at problems that cannot be solved, questions that cannot ever, once and for all, saisfactorily be put to rest.”
With no glimmer of hope at the ending and no promise of a resolution to come, Agents of Dreamland defies conventional expectations and raises the spector of a future we may not want to imagine.
In short, this is great writing that is likely to stick with the reader for a very long time. Definitely not to be missed.
Read more …
When the novella begins, the agent known only as the Signalman, a cynical hard-drinking operative on the trail of a cult leader, is arriving in Winslow, Arizona. There he meets with the enigmatic Immacolata Sexton, a woman whose cryptic, hard-as-nails exterior is later belied by small future acts of compassion toward the suffering denizens of a doomed Los Angeles. Sexton is a time traveler; we follow her from Vermont in 1927, where she examines evidence of an alien spacecraft, to the American southwest and a desperate, present-day race to stop a horrific plague, then to a future Los Angeles where alien ships rule the sky and the few human inhabitants eke out a pitiable existence.
All Kiernan’s characters are memorable; for me, the most vivid was a confused, lost young woman named Chloe, who’s been goomed by cult leader Drew Standish to become a key member of the Children of the Next Level. Chloe’s lurid, drug-addled past makes her a perfect, if tragic, foil for indoctrination by madman Standish.
To be fair, Agents of Dreamland is not for everyone (but what great fiction is?). Some may find it too pervasively dark or too graphic in its depiction of body horror. Some may wish for a more traditional, less unsettling ending, especially at a time in history when the idea of ecological disaster, alien or otherwise, seems all too likely.
As Kiernan writes, “The haunted human psyche craves resolution…humans, inherent problem solvers that we are, chafe at problems that cannot be solved, questions that cannot ever, once and for all, saisfactorily be put to rest.”
With no glimmer of hope at the ending and no promise of a resolution to come, Agents of Dreamland defies conventional expectations and raises the spector of a future we may not want to imagine.
In short, this is great writing that is likely to stick with the reader for a very long time. Definitely not to be missed.
Read more …
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