Caitlín R. Kiernan was born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in the southeastern U.S. She is the author of thirteen novels, including The Drowning Girl, winner of the Bram Stoker and the James Tiptree, Jr. awards, as well as more than two hundred and fifty short stories. Kiernan has written graphic novels for both DC/Vertigo and Dark Horse Comics. She has fronted a short-lived goth-rock band, and worked as a vertebrate paleontologist in both Alabama and Colorado; in 1988, she described a new genus and species of ancient marine lizard, the mosasaur Selmasaurus russelli. Kiernan currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner, Kathryn Pollnac, and two very large cats, Selwyn and Lydia.
Praise for The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan
2019 Bram Stoker Award Recommended List
“Pure genius . . . an underappreciated master whose vision
expresses itself through vast geographic expanses, gender fluidity,
geological upheaval, lingering forces of evil, the horror and
beauty of the natural world and the mythic architecture of the
human mind. Kiernan is transformative. Read her and be
changed.”
—New York Times
[STARRED] "This stellar collection of 20 reprints, drawn solely
from Kiernan’s limited-edition publications, showcases her talent
for blurring boundaries and creating distinctive sensory
experiences. The Lovecraftian “Andromeda Among the Stones” is set
against a writhing, vast seascape, where a young woman inherits a
profound and terrifying family legacy. A journalist reflects on his
time with a beautiful suicide cult leader who came dangerously
close to calling forth something truly monstrous in the prickly,
creeping “Houses Under the Sea.” The pitch-perfect noir gem “The
Maltese Unicorn” is a kinky, twisted take on Dashiell Hammett’s The
Maltese Falcon. “The Ape’s Wife,” a genre-defying standout,
features King Kong’s object of affection, Ann Darrow, who, lost in
a strange space called All-at-Once Time, is confronted with the
many paths she might have taken. In “A Season of Broken Dolls,” a
woman confronts her lover’s fascination with “stitchwork,” an art
movement that takes body modification to terrifying new levels, and
a young violinist discovers a terrible truth about her sister’s
disappearance in “The Ammonite Violin.” With lush prose, Kiernan
finds strange beauty in terrible tableaus, never failing to
unsettle and inspire awe in equal measure. This versatile
retrospective offers something for nearly every fan of the strange
and macabre, and cements Kiernan’s legacy as the reigning queen of
dark fantasy."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[STARRED] Drenched in an ocean setting and an atmosphere of
corruption and decay, Kiernan's short fiction, published previously
in volumes by several small presses, is collected here for the
first time. ‘In Andromeda Among the Stones,’ Meredith Dandridge has
to close the gate her father opened, letting the horrors of World
War I into the world. In ‘Houses Under the Sea,’ a cult leader
ushers her followers into the ocean (readers of Kiernan's The
Drowning Girl will be familiar with the group), while "The Prayer
of Ninety Cats" features a film critic who reviews a disturbing
film covering the life of Erzsebet Báthory. In "A Fairy Tale of
Wood Street," the narrator's girlfriend stops hiding the cow's tail
that she had all along, and an artist enters the land of faeries in
"La Peau Verte." The anthology's lack of explanatory prefaces or
afterwords is noticeable, but the stories speak for themselves.
VERDICT: Bodies, relationships, and the world are all changeable,
shifting, and unstable in this collection by a master of dark
fiction. Though influenced by Lovecraftian mythos, the work stands
on its own and will be essential for Kiernan devotees.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Like [Stephen] King, Kiernan’s short fiction covers a broad range
of subjects and genres, from science fiction to fantasy to the
cosmic horror that she’s become so well known for with her novella
Agents of Dreamland. Her stories are strange, beautiful, and full
of emotion.”
—Bookriot
“Wonderful, strange, horrid, lovely.”
—Strange Horizons
“Caitlín Kiernan is a minister of dark magic, and any collection of
her work is a must-read.”
—Chuck Wendig, author of Hyperion and The Shield
“Caitlín Kiernan is one of the true visionaries and finest stylists
in our field, and very possibly the most lyrical. Her tales enrich
the imagination, and represent the literature of the dark at its
most gorgeous and disturbing. This book is a treasure house of
wonders and terrors, and an essential purchase for anyone who cares
about the great tradition of weird fiction.”
—Ramsey Campbell, author of The Parasite and Thirteen Days by
Sunset Beach
“A collection rather than an anthology, The Very Best of Caitlín R
Kiernan (Tachyon) hews to one style, uttering its fabulations in
one piercingly delicious voice. My personal favorite, ‘The Maltese
Unicorn,’ dishes up a Dashiell Hammett-esque crime narrative in a
setting filled with bisexual demons and enchanted dildos. Often
decay appears as a near-sentient character in the fictional worlds
Kiernan constructs; often wickedness and ineffability and fate
acquire a palpable, practically tactile presence in prose both
teasing and pleasing. The author flirts with literary pretentions
at times, and many of her overtures have been answered (as a glance
at her long list of publication credits reveals) by hard-to-locate
publications. Let us be grateful that Tachyon’s Jacob Weisman and
Jill Roberts have made appreciation much easier by curating this
magnificent selection of Kiernan’s eerily beautiful oeuvre.”
—Seattle Review of Books
“Kiernan’s prose is provocative, mysterious, soothing, decadent,
flowery without being flowery. It’s seeing a master at her best.
It’s inspiring, mystifying, indescribable. I could try to describe
how much I enjoy her prose, but it would only come out wrong. It
would be like a child trying to describe the vastness and mystery
of the cosmos”
—Micah Castle, author of The Abyss Beyond the Reflection
“The collection is an excellent example of someone capable of
consummate worldbuilding within a limited word count, resulting in
the feeling of experiencing a bite-sized epic.”
—Strange Alliances
“To enter the world of Caitlin R. Kiernan is to enter a world where
dreams become nightmares, nightmares become reality, and
transformation—horrible, beautiful, or sometimes both—is a constant
. . . as the title suggests, this is a terrific collection from one
of the best writers of her generation.
—Barnes & Noble Sci Fi/Fantasy Book Blog
“Kiernan's stories will submerge you in a strange world filled with
the twisted, radical reflections of Giger and Lovecraft, their
aesthetic skins stretched over anger, pain, queerness, and
courage.”
—Lara Elena Donnelly, author of the Amberlough Dossier series
“Caitlín R. Kiernan is one of the most inventive, seductive, and
wickedly intelligent writers working today in any genre, and this
treasury puts her powers on full display. Her stories are
promiscuous vampires, eager to draw their energy from folklore,
space opera, crime fiction, weird tales, and the dreams of the
silver screen. Whether their tone is streetwise or scholarly,
archaic or futuristic, these tales share Kiernan's signature flavor
of a last drink on the edge of the abyss. She is Our Lady of
Elation and Melancholy. A sinister, spellbinding collection.”
—Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria and Monster
Portraits
“Lyrically compelling tales that are nearly impossible to stop
reading . . . fans of weird writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff
VanderMeer, and China Mieville will be glad to find this volume and
thereby discover a writer who inspired them all.”
—Booklist
“To begin a Caitlín R. Kiernan story is to enter a world so vividly
imagined that it's almost unbearable, on a journey as terrifying as
it is irresistible.”
—Sam J. Miller, author of Blackfish City
5/5 stars. “Leav[es] you startled by how skilled one person could
be. The stories gave me chills at times, and I was in awe of these
strings of words that acted more like spells than stories. It’s a
collection to be read and savored.”
—Reviews and Robots
“It has made me a fan, and a big one at that. Kiernan is easily one
of the best writers of weird fiction working today.”
—The Horror Fiction Review
"Kiernan’s style of writing is not very traditional and her use of
language is dark, disturbing, and grotesque, while simultaneously
drawing you in and holding your attention. The reading equivalent
of: ‘I can’t look away.’ . . . I would recommend this collection to
you if you enjoy the works of: Shirley Jackson, Victor Lavalle,
Nick Mamatas, Angela Carter, David Lynch, H.P. Lovecraft, or Cosmic
Horror."
—Infinite Text
“The stories within this collection are powerful and diverse, each
one polished to perfection . . . This is a collection released by a
multiple award winner at the top of her game.”
—High Fever Books
“Magnificent nightmares rise out of Kiernan’s work.”
—New York Journal of Books
"All I can say is, like all good rollercoasters, it left me dizzy
and excited and desperate to go around again."
—Nerds of a Feather
“These stories will fucking haunt you.”
—Shon Richards, author of Atlas the Wanderer
“Caitlín R. Kiernan is producing the very best of contemporary dark
and weird fiction.”
—Paul St. John Mackintosh, author of The Golden Age
“I have been saying for years that everyone interested in short
fiction should be reading Caitlín R. Kiernan. This is the perfect
opportunity to be introduced to her range and virtuosity.”
—SF Revu
“A must-read for any fan of dark fantasy and horror.”
—Bustle
“There’s literally nothing out there quite like Kiernan’s stories,
and they’re dazzling.”
—Pixelated Geek
Praise for Caitlín R. Kiernan
“Caitlín Kiernan is the poet and bard of the wasted and the
lost.”
—Neil Gaiman, author of Norse Mythology
“Caitlín R. Kiernan is an original.”
—Clive Barker, author of The Books of Blood series and
Hellraiser
“Caitlín R. Kiernan writes like a Gothic cathedral on fire.”
—Poppy Z. Brite, author of Lost Souls
Praise for The Drowning Girl
“Incisive, beautiful and as perfectly crafted as a puzzle-box, The
Drowning Girl took my breath away.”
—Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Red Glove
“This is a masterpiece. It deserves to be read in and out of genre
for a long, long time.”
—Elizabeth Bear, author of Grail
“A beautifully written, startlingly original novel.”
—Elizabeth Hand, author of Illyria
“With The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan moves firmly into the
new vanguard, still being formed, of our best and most artful
authors of the gothic and fantastic—those capable of writing
fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness.”
—Peter Straub, author of A Ghost Story
“Caitlín R. Kiernan turns the ghost story inside out and transforms
it.”
—Brian Evanson, author of Last Days
“The Drowning Girl features all those elements of Caitlín R.
Kiernan’s writing that readers have come to expect—a prose style of
wondrous luminosity, an atmosphere of languorous melancholy, and an
inexplicable mixture of aching beauty and clutching terror.”
—S. T. Joshi, author of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P.
Lovecraft
“Kiernan pins out the traditional memoir on her worktable and
metamorphoses it into something wholly different and achingly
familiar, more alien, more difficult, more beautiful, and more
true.”
—Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times bestselling author of
Deathless
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