Praise for The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan

2019 Bram Stoker Award Recommended List
2019 Locus Recommending Reading 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

“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 

“[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

“Wonderful, strange, horrid, lovely.”
— Strange Horizons

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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 & 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