Scan barcode
A review by mamimitanaka
Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan
4.0
My biggest complaint with this is that it's almost too short - but that being said it's clearly meant to be the first piece of a larger puzzle, but as far as "set up" goes it's probably one of the most gripping first entries to a spec-fic series I can think of reading in quite awhile. This employs Kiernan's expected interest in the Cthulhu Mythos as usual, but as far as direct references go it's a bit more in the background this time, and what's at focus here is a phantasmagoric sense of setting, form and tone - Kiernan moves effortlessly back and forth between a few revolving perspective characters, sometimes switching tense entirely and through first person and omniscient perspectives, and jumps through time with the ease and elegance of an acrobatic. And as usual Kiernan has an absolute mastery of precise prose threaded together by an immensely weighty sensation of tension and release, which when combined with the imagery just makes for writing that hypnotizes in its languid choreography, as easily used to evoke dark beauty as unfiltered dread. I can't do it justice with my own lousy description but there's this part where the narrative moves backwards in time by decades with a half-sentence remark of turning a watch back the exact however many thousand number of times [I don't recall the exact number] until it lands on the date they then proceed to detail, I mean that's just clever and seamless on a level the vast majority of modern fantasy authors would not consider at all. The way they word stuff is just unmatched, the visions I get in my mind's eye when reading Kiernan's prose is as crystal clear as watching a film, and one that's in HD if anything.
I also like how Kiernan's playing at a larger scale narrative here while also clever enough to avoid the pitfalls of spec-fic series openers who just sort of introduce the world and then wait for the rest of the entries to make it make sense; what's already on display here works perfectly well by itself. It's a science fiction narrative playing at cosmic horror first and foremost, but it's woven together with conspiratorial overtones, themes of government control and coercion and grooming of the vulnerable by doomsday cults [whose power is compared and contrasted against the vast hands of state power the protagonist doubtingly holds duty to], Tarot lore and hints at magic, Biblical and mythological undertones, and plenty more. It's all got the makings of something enormous but Kiernan's incredible control over the narrative swell makes it all feel scaled back while never diminishing its impact, and what many science fiction authors would spend entire novels on Kiernan effortlessly introduces, expands, and summates in five pages, while always keeping the door open for more, both in potential extrapolation of already extant themes or things unknown branching off from them. A 4/5 but definitely on the higher end, probably my second favorite of their full lengths I've read so far after "The Red Tree". Will check out the sequel ASAP.
I also like how Kiernan's playing at a larger scale narrative here while also clever enough to avoid the pitfalls of spec-fic series openers who just sort of introduce the world and then wait for the rest of the entries to make it make sense; what's already on display here works perfectly well by itself. It's a science fiction narrative playing at cosmic horror first and foremost, but it's woven together with conspiratorial overtones, themes of government control and coercion and grooming of the vulnerable by doomsday cults [whose power is compared and contrasted against the vast hands of state power the protagonist doubtingly holds duty to], Tarot lore and hints at magic, Biblical and mythological undertones, and plenty more. It's all got the makings of something enormous but Kiernan's incredible control over the narrative swell makes it all feel scaled back while never diminishing its impact, and what many science fiction authors would spend entire novels on Kiernan effortlessly introduces, expands, and summates in five pages, while always keeping the door open for more, both in potential extrapolation of already extant themes or things unknown branching off from them. A 4/5 but definitely on the higher end, probably my second favorite of their full lengths I've read so far after "The Red Tree". Will check out the sequel ASAP.