Radiomen - Hardcover

Lerman, Eleanor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579623832 ISBN 13: 9781579623838

Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co, 2015

Synopsis

Winner of the 2016 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year

There are two themes to Radiomen. First, if there are aliens interacting with our world they are likely just as confused about who or what God is as human beings are; and second, whoever they are, they're probably just as fond of dogs as we are.

Laurie, a woman who works at a bar at Kennedy airport doesn't remember that when she was a child, she met an alien on the fire escape of a building where her uncle kept a shortwave radio. The radio is part of a universal network of repeaters maintained by an unknown alien race; they us the network to broadcast prayers into the universe.

She meets a psychic who is actually part of a Scientology-like cult called the "Blue Awareness," as well as a late-night radio host. All have their own reasons for unraveling the mystery of the lost radio network.

Laurie is given a strange dog by her neighbor, an immigrant and a member of the Dogon tribe - people who believe they were visited by aliens long ago and repeat a myth about how the aliens brought dog-like animals with them. All Dogon dogs are supposedly descended from that animal.

As conflict develops between the Blue Awareness leader and the other characters, the Dogon acts as an intermediary between the humans, who want to understand why the aliens need the radio network, and the aliens who need the humans to help them find a lost element of the universal network.

About this title

About the Author:

ELEANOR LERMAN is a writer who lives in New York. Her first book of poetry, Armed Love, published when she was twenty-one, was a National Book Award finalist. She has since published several other award-winning collections of poetry - Come the Sweet By and By; The Mystery of Meteors; Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds; and The Sensual World Re-Emerges, along with The Blonde on the Train, a collection of short stories.

Eleanor was awrded the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and The Nation magazine, and received a 2007 Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first novel, Janet Planet, based on the life of Carlos Castaneda, was published in 2011. Her latest collection of poetry, Strange Life, was published in 2014.

Review:

"When Laurie calls into a late-night radio show to talk to a psychic, she has no idea that this connection will turn her world upside down. Before she can even speak, the psychic is able to discern an image from Laurie's childhood: an alien being Laurie saw four decades ago. The psychic is part of a cult-like organization known as Blue Awareness that believes humans share a common lineage with aliens. Laurie simply wants to be left alone, but Blue Awareness becomes increasingly menacing, as she discovers that the alien she saw as a child wants something from her now. This novel is both a sharp send-up of Scientology and an intriguing aliens-among-us-tale." --Booklist

"This novel has an inspiring premise and an even better plot. It's a hybrid between conventional novel and science fiction. At the end of any good book what readers ask themselves is, "What did it all mean?" and, more importantly, "What does it mean to my life?" These are questions that Radiomen asks in multiple ways." NY Journal of Books --New York Journal of Books

"Eleanor Lerman's odd, compelling novel can lay claim to showing its author's skill as a poet, especially in its bleak descriptions...Though the narrative proves engaging, it's the unconventional subject matter that proves most intriguing. Radiomen brings together an unlikely assortment of people and situations...Radiomen, may be science fiction, but, hardly a predictable or typical example of the genre, it may well appeal to those who think they never would read such pop lit and enjoy it." --NPR

"As Lerman's entertaining second novel winds to its conclusion, it'll leave readers wondering if there might be life out there." --Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1579623832
• ISBN 13: 9781579623838
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288