An Alien Darkness

by Adam-Troy Castro, Jerry Oltion

An Alien Darkness Sometimes the most impenetrable darkness appears in the most direct sunlight. Sometimes it’s just the illusory darkness that comes with territories we don’t know; sometimes a very real darkness inhabited by alien secrets. Explore these tales of a man who kills himself only to confront Mankind’s greatest enemy on the far side of death . . . a brother and sister who meet the deceased sibling they never knew . . . an obsessed avenger stalking the hauntingly familiar family of his nightmares . . . .a robot determined to spend eternity guarding the burial site of its creator . . . and a strange alien ritual and the one woman willing to give her life to understand it. “More innovative than Adam, more defensible than Troy, more reasonable than Castro — and one helluva writer to that’s Adam-Troy Castro.” — Mike Resnick, author of Kirinyaga “Adam-Troy Castro’s stories are haunting, visionary, hilarious, demented, acerbic, strange, terrifying, and as full-tilt, whacked-out gonzo as anything I’ve ever seen. An Alien Darkness is American surrealism at its best. Read this book, and feel your brain melt." — Allen Steele, author of Orbital Decay “An Alien Darkness is both masterful and inventive. It will steal your sleep and haunt your days!” — KD Wentworth, author of Black/On/Black “His plots make you shake your head and wonder why nobody thought of this before. His characters are refreshingly real. His prose is readable without sacrificing complexity. He is, quite simply, one of the finest writers working today.” — Keith R.A. DeCandido, author of Venom’s Wrath “Adam-Troy Castro has created a compelling work of fiction in ‘The Funeral March of the Marionettes.’ The story keeps you thinking long after you finish it. As a dancer, I am a difficult audience to please when it comes themes of dance—but this haunting novella riveted my attention. Castro’s vivid ideas and accomplished story-telling are a pleasure to read.” — Catherine Asaro, Hugo-nominated author of The Phoenix Code

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2000

About the author

Adam-Troy Castro made his first professional sale to Spy magazine in 1987. Since then, he's published 12 books and almost 80 short stories. Among those stories are "Baby Girl Diamond" (nominated for the Bram Stoker Award) and "The Funeral March of the Marionettes" (nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1998). "The Astronaut from Wyoming," a collaboration with Jerry Oltion, appeared in Analog and was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2000, before winning the Seiun (Japanese Hugo) for best translation in 2008.

His "Of A Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs" was nominated for the 2003 Nebula. His original short story collections include Lost in Booth Nine (published by Silver Salamander Press in 1993), An Alien Darkness and A Desperate Decaying Darkness (published by Wildside Press in 2000), Vossoff and Nimmitz (2002), and Tangled Strings (2003). He is also the author of the Spider-Man novels—Time's Arrow: The Present (written in collaboration with Tom DeFalco), The Gathering of the Sinister Six, Revenge of the Sinister Six, and Secret of the Sinister Six—as well as the nonfiction My Ox Is Broken! The Andrea Cort novels include, Emissaries from the Dead, The Third Claw of God, and a third installment currently in progress, tentatively titled The Fall of the Marionettes.

Castro, who married the divine Judi on 25 December 2002, lives in Florida with his wife and four cats: Maggie, Uma Furman, Meow Farrow, and the latest acquisition, Ralphie, an orphan of 2005's hellacious hurricane season.

Reviews

[Veach Glines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contents:
The Last Robot: (not the Castro story I would have chosen to start an eleven-story collection)...meh.

Neither Rain Nor Sleet: very short and equally creepy, the way the story is communicated (the sentence to paragraph scaffolds) unsettled me more than plot.

Cerile and the Journeyer: I don't enjoy a Castro story which goes where expected and finishes predictably--even when nicely written.

Ego to Go: A good one. This unique eleven-page gem might need re-reading in order for (metaphor needed).

MS. found paper-clipped to a box of Jujubes: I initially thought the author must have laughed as hard or harder when he actually published these few pages of drug-addled incoherence, than when the combination of THC and LSD initially birthed the non-sentence non-paragraph nonsensical combination of words in his head/on his screen. Then I read the Afterword; Castro actually thinks this is a story--a "leading publisher" rejected it...which caused me to attempt to re-read it because I thought I might be able to determine if my brain had failed to "get it." After one page my right hemisphere went on sabbatical and delegated the re-read to my left temporal lobe. Two pages in: my left brain began to daydream about GOOD Adam-Troy Castro Stories (Her Husband's Hands specifically) and decided that all that was really needed was for my eyes to keep moving over the words, it could not discern a single reason to use any temporary short-term memory for something that would never, ever, find a spot in long-term. I stopped moving my eyes over the collection of black marks on the page "somewherelselater". . . Is this Castro attempting post-modernism? Is this review longer than the story?

The Batman and Robin Murder mystery - Solved!: An interesting synopsis of a future (?) Castro novel.

Woo-Woo Vengenance: FINALLY a Castro story one can love. A hint. A hook. Subtle until it's not. A punch in the face masked with humor will still leave bruises inside and out.

The Guy...Mount Everest (the title is good but too long to include here so I decided to clip it down to four words in order to save space). This is a likeable Castro story filled with dis-likable characters who takes a few corners until they all end up where they belong (or on top of Everest).

Fuel: I'm of-two-minds about this story. I enjoy its existential message. I am jarred by the brisque jump-cuts and paragraphs of synopsis(es). This needed to be three times larger/detailed.

Baby Girl Diamond: THIS STORY MAKES THE ENTIRE BOOK WORTH IT! This story made me cry. When Is the last time you read a story. A fiction short story. And wept tears of sadness for the character? SHIT this is great writing.

The Funeral March of the Marionettes: I already read this in a different ATC collection. None-the-less, it is a great story. Alien World Speculative fiction done the way I like it.