After the Saucers Landed

Douglas Lain

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After the Saucers Landed was nominated for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award. UFOlogist Harold Flint is heartbroken and depressed that the aliens that have landed on the White House lawn appear to be straight out of an old B movie. They wave to the television cameras in their sequined jumpsuits, form a nonprofit organization offering new age enlightenment, and hover their saucers over the streets of New York looking for converts. Harold wants no part of this kitschy invasion until one of the aliens, a beautiful blonde named Asket, begs him to investigate the saucers again and write another UFO book. The aliens and their mission are not as they seem. Asket isn't who she seems either. Tracking down her true personality leads Harold and his cowriter through a maze of identity and body-swapping madness, descending into paranoia as Harold realizes that reality, or at least humanity's perception of it, may be more flexible than anyone will admit. After the Saucers Landed is a deeply unsettling experimental satire, placing author Douglas Lain alongside contemporaries like Jeff VanderMeer and Charles Yu as one of his generation's most exciting and challenging speculative fiction voices.