Nominated for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award
“There’s something fresh and stirring about Lain’s rendering of the subject matter . . . Lain [has a] sharp and easy voice, cool humor and wit, appetite for the absurd, and understanding of our mediatized nuances.”
—L.A. Review of Books
“Lain’s writing is unsettling, ferociously smart, and extremely addictive.”
—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble and Magic for Beginners
“Brilliant. . .Lain manages in his subtle and involving tale of shifting realities to tie in Fluxus, the Carpenters. . .and the aliens with whom we are most familiar, the ones we see in our mirrors each day.”
—Jack Womack, author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence
“Lain takes us on a wild trip through the art and science of flying saucers and explores the fluid nature of identity in interesting and surprising ways. You’ll be glad you read this.”
—Ray Vukcevich, author of Meet Me in the Moon Room
“Douglas Lain has a great brain. I am hugely impressed with his prospects...”
—Jonathan Lethem, New York Times bestselling author
“I don't know anyone else doing quite what Lain is doing; fascinating work, moving, strikingly honest, powerful.”
—Locus
Description
The bastard-offspring of They Live and The Day the Earth Stood Still, as told by Jean Paul Sartre.
Shape-changing aliens may have landed on the Whitehouse lawn and subsequently integrated into human society, but humanity is still full of self-centered and self-absorbed individuals. Laura’s just scraping by on her art teacher’s salary. Donald, a bestselling author and UFOlogist who provided counseling to abductees, has tried to distance himself from the saucer landings and is looking to move on with his life.
But everything changes when Shelly, an alien enrolled in Laura’s art class, mysteriously switches places with Laura. Life begins to unravel. Laura then realizes this isn’t the first time Shelly has moved into another person’s body, and fragments of other people’s memories have jumped with her, including those of Donald’s wife. Laura begins to grasp that reality, or at least humanity’s perception of it, may be more flexible than anyone wants to admit. And though she can’t explain how or why, she suspects the aliens are behind it and will need Donald’s help to stop them.
In an egocentric society that sleepwalks through the rituals of daily life, would people even notice if the world around them suddenly and inexplicably changes? Part Jonathan Lethem (Amnesia Moon) and part Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), Douglas Lain’s latest novel uses science fiction’s alien invasion rubric to examine and undermine the world we take for granted. This deeply unsettling satire places him alongside contemporaries like Jeff VanderMeer and Charles Yu as one of his generation’s most exciting and challenging speculative fiction voices.
Reviews
Nominated for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award
“There’s something fresh and stirring about Lain’s rendering of the subject matter . . . Lain [has a] sharp and easy voice, cool humor and wit, appetite for the absurd, and understanding of our mediatized nuances.”
—L.A. Review of Books
“Lain’s writing is unsettling, ferociously smart, and extremely addictive.”
—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble and Magic for Beginners
“Brilliant. . .Lain manages in his subtle and involving tale of shifting realities to tie in Fluxus, the Carpenters. . .and the aliens with whom we are most familiar, the ones we see in our mirrors each day.”
—Jack Womack, author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence
“Lain takes us on a wild trip through the art and science of flying saucers and explores the fluid nature of identity in interesting and surprising ways. You’ll be glad you read this.”
—Ray Vukcevich, author of Meet Me in the Moon Room
“Douglas Lain has a great brain. I am hugely impressed with his prospects...”
—Jonathan Lethem, New York Times bestselling author
“I don't know anyone else doing quite what Lain is doing; fascinating work, moving, strikingly honest, powerful.”
—Locus
