About the Book
A is for Alien is award-winning author Caitlín R. Kiernan's first collection devoted entirely to her science-fiction work. It includes the critically acclaimed novelette Riding the White Bull, along with seven other tales of a less-than-utopian future.
Ranging from the wastelands and mountains of Mars to the streets of a late twenty-first century Manhattan, from the moons of Europa and Saturn to an iceless Antarctica, these tales bring Kiernan's trademark brand of the eco-gothic to bear on what it means to be human and the paths and decisions that may face mankind only a little farther along.
About the Author :
Caitlín R. Kiernan was born near Dublin, Ireland, but has spent most of her life in the southeastern United States. In 1992, she began writing her first novel, The Five of Cups (it remained unpublished until 2003). She is a prolific short fiction author, and her award-winning short stories have been collected in numerous volumes. Her short science fiction novel The Dry Salvages was published in 2004.
Lisa Flanagan is an award-winning audiobook narrator, voice actor, director, improviser, and classical soprano based in New York City. Her voice-over work includes animation, video games, and commercials. Lisa has received multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and Voice Arts Awards, including Best Audiobook Narration, Children's for Disney-Pixar's WALL-E. "A fave among audiobook listeners" (Buzzfeed), Natalie Naudus is one of the most popular audiobook narrators working today. She has won an Audie award and nine Earphones awards, and maintains a robust social media following. She lives with her family on a mountain in Virginia. Gay the Pray Away is her debut novel.
Lauren Ezzo is a Chicago-based audiobook narrator and commercial voice talent. A Michigan native and Hope College alumna, at this writing she has narrated over 100 titles for authors including Catherine Ryan Hyde, Georgia Clark, Adam Rapp, M. Dressler, Christopher Rice, Kirk Lynn, Lauren James, and Dot Hutchison. She has won multiple awards for her narration, including several "Best of the Year" lists, and several Earphones Awards. In 2016, her performance of The Light Fantastic, by Sarah Combs, conarrated with Todd Haberkorn, was named one of AudioFile's best books of the year. She was accorded the same honor in 2017 from School Library Journal for her narration of To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party. In 2018, she was Audie Award-nominated as part of a full cast of narrators for Best Original Work, Nevertheless We Persisted, performing two pieces-one of which she authored. She is a proud member of the Audio Publishers Association, and a lifelong bookworm. Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world.
A native of London, England, Shiromi Arserio is a stage actor, voice talent, and audiobook narrator. She holds a BA in theater from Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. In addition to narrating dozens of audiobooks, her voice can be heard in documentaries, e-learning projects, and video games such as Nancy Drew: The Shattered Medallion. Shiromi currently resides in the Seattle area with her husband and her two furbabies. Xe Sands has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art. She has received several honors, including many AudioFile Earphones Awards and a coveted Audie Award, and she was named Favorite Debut Romance Narrator of 2011 in the Romance Audiobooks poll.
Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she's played on-screen.
Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.
Review :
"Kiernan's style relies on clarity in prose, the extraordinary related as if it were everyday, and a subtlety that belies her disturbing imagery. The eight stories in this slim volume are, in short, exquisite containers for the strange paths of her imagined futures. In reading these pieces, you become other, and the better for it."
-- "Booklist"
"Known for dark fantasy that skates the edge of horror, Kiernan turns to science fiction with equally unsettling effects in these eight stories."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
