Member Reviews

A government agent called The Signalman has a meeting with a mysterious woman in Winslow, Arizona about a bizarre cult murder near the Salton Sea days earlier. But what do those events have to do with the New Horizons space probe and a black and white movie penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Despite my resolve to take on as few ARCs as possible this year, I couldn't resist this one when it popped up on Netgalley. It sounded wonderfully bizarre and it was.

Much like half of the books I've read so far in 2017, Agents of Dreamland is a modern Lovecraft tale of sorts, a tale of madness, alien fungus, shady government dealings, and an apocalypse on the horizon. There are a ton of ideas and hints in this novella, enough to fuel my imagination long after I finished it.

The Signalman is just a few years from retirement and fighting for every inch in that direction. Immacolata is a mysterious woman who knows many things she shouldn't. When she gives the Signalman her briefcase, his life gets several shades worse. The Fungi from Yuggoth are one of my favorite Lovecraftian baddies and they probably don't get enough press. Agents of Dreamland pushes them to their full potential, making for a chilling read.

Since it's a novella, I don't want to say much more. Suffice to say, Agents of Dreamland is a gripping read that blends Lovecraftian lore with conspiracy theories into a slick package brimming with ideas. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Wow this is short but really powerful stuff here, my first introduction to this author and its making me want to read everything.

So, this is dark fantasy/scifi and the general plot could described as Alien Invasion with loopy time travel shenanigans and a basis in authentic scientific fact. If you can cope with the creepy try googling Zombie Fungus.

The characters are extraordinarily well drawn for a novella, Caitlin R Kiernan has the magic touch when it comes to getting across personality and depth through very few words which is important within the short story format – in fact I don’t think I’ve seen better. This is totally absorbing, scary as anything and genuinely thought provoking. I loved that it is open to interpretation – perhaps I should caution that if you like definitive answers this won’t be for you.

It really was horribly good. So beautifully written, so intensely descriptive and telling a really rocking tale of secret agents trying to save the world. Its like an episode of the Twilight Zone, one of the more excellent ones, but in novella form.

Highly Recommended.

**review also on goodreads - upload to Amazon upon release.

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The nitty-gritty: Weird and wonderfully terrifying, and written in stunningly beautiful prose, this short alien invasion story—based on scientific fact—will scare the hell out of you with its creeping terror.

I had no idea what to expect when I sat down to crank out Agents of Dreamland over the weekend. I just knew I was glad to have something short to read in order to get a book review up today. But wow, I was not expecting this story to work its way under my skin. This is the first Caitlín R. Kiernan story I’ve read, and I’m actually saddened to admit that, because she’s an amazing writer who has been publishing since the early 2000s. Agents of Dreamland is short but powerful, and don’t be surprised if you have nightmares after reading it!

Kiernan doesn’t give us a straightforward, linear story. Instead, her tale weaves from past to present, and even into the future. An operative for a secret government agency known as Dreamland is investigating cult leader Drew Standish and the events that took place at his remote ranch located near the Salton Sea. The Signalman, as this agent is known, arrives at the Moonlight Ranch to track down Drew, but instead, he and his partner Vance find a horrific crime scene: the ranch house is full of dead bodies that have literally erupted and are sprouting toadstools. The ranch is immediately shut off from the outside world, and the Signalman and Vance are quarantined, but even then they aren’t sure if they’ve stopped the threat, whatever it is.

In alternating chapters that take place ten days before the discovery of the bodies, teenager Chloe awaits her transformation. She’s an ex-junkie who’s been brought to Moonlight Ranch by Drew, and she and the other cult members have been told that they are the “Children of the Next Level.”

Finally, the Signalman is called back to Dreamland headquarters where a dying Chloe is being studied. What exactly happened to her and the others? How is the event connected to other secret alien sightings and the infamous Area 51? And where is the missing Drew Standish?

Observing the entire thing is a woman (or is she?) named Immacolata Sexton, who meets with the Signalman to give him a briefcase that may or may not hold the answers to this mystery. Immacolata can travel through time and space, and what she observes is frightening to say the least.

Agents of Dreamland reminded me a little of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, and at times I had flashbacks of both Alien and Torchwood, so if you’re familiar with those stories, you’ll have an idea of what you’re in for. Kiernan’s story takes some patience, as she doesn’t reveal what’s happening until nearly the end, and even then, the reader is going to have to piece things together. I love stories that make you work a little to understand them, and Kiernan obviously has the skills to make this style of storytelling work.

For such a short novella, Kiernan’s scope is surprisingly vast, and I have to say she did an amazing job of making everything work within just over a hundred pages. One of the more interesting things about this story is the character of Immacolata, an enigmatic woman who can see the entire history of alien invasion conspiracy theory in America. Through her eyes we witness the satellite New Horizons veer too close to Pluto, and several occurrences throughout history of sightings of “a cloud from deep space that swallowed the world.” Kiernan connects each seemingly disparate event to create a bleak future made up of many small events of the past, and like many successful alien invasion stories, hers is relentlessly terrifying.

As for what’s happened to Chloe and her other cult pals, Kiernan has based her alien invasion scenario on a real-life fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, or the “zombie fungus.” I’ve actually read about this before, so when it popped up in the story, I felt my stomach clench. I won’t go into details but let’s just say I was happier before I found out that things like this are real. (I’ll let those of you curious and brave enough Google it!)

I’m happy to report that this novella is exactly the length it should be. I sometimes complain that novella-length works are often lacking in character development or detail, but Kiernan has clearly mastered the novella form. If you’re in the mood for an unsettling vision of what could be, then look no further. You’ve found it.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

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Review: AGENTS OF DREAMLAND by Caitlin R. Kiernan


To open any fiction by Caitlin R. Kiernan is to open oneself to a world of infinite possibilities. In her works of horror, of course, many of these possibilities are life-changing and even world-ending. They are also frequently unforgettable. From my personal Lovecraft-obsessed viewpoint, Ms. Kiernan "gets" the Lovecraft Mythos in a degree unsurpassable. Here in the novella AGENTS OF DREAMLAND, she creates not just a contemporary ecological disaster brought by summoning from another dimension but very toxic to humanity; she interweaves alien incursions and natural disasters of the past and a post-apocalyptic near future that is almost unsurvivable--and it's not nuclear, nor EMP, nor solar flare. It came from Out There, and it's implacable. (and Lovecraftian). I will never erase it from my mind. What a glorious read for February, Women in Horror Month.

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This novella has so much packed into it, it would really have read better as a full length book. After a doomsday cult offs most of their members with a “kool-ade” concoction of weird fungus, a government agent known as the Watchman meets up with a mysterious woman who seems to be living outside of our time. He is looking for information about the Children of the Next Level and the possible connection to the NASA interplanetary probe that has made contact with something out beyond Pluto. I really enjoyed the premise, and would like to see the story rewritten as a much longer book

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