Books

UNICORN BATTLE SQUAD

“Imagine Terry Gilliam directing from a script written by Jack Vance channeling the ghosts of Kafka and Calvino, and you’re closing in on the essence of Alene’s latest novel. A bold fusion of grounded surrealism, unfettered filth, and wit as dry and dark as a strip of unicorn jerky.” – Jesse Bullington, author of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

Mutant unicorns. A palace with a thousand human legs. The most powerful army on the planet. A first world city on the verge of collapse.

In a city where teetering skyscrapers block out the sky, a city populated by lowly clerks, rumors have been circulating of a terror in the east. When Carl, the lowliest clerk on the negative twelfth floor, discovers that the city is indeed in grave danger, he sets out to warn the city’s protectors: the Unicorn Riders.

Although Carl’s missing father has left him a unicorn of his own, it is a small and sickly creature. Even worse, there is a crab claw growing from its side. But the Unicorn Riders need as much help as they can get, and soon every able rider sets out for the city’s flooded perimeter in a steam-powered Spanish galleon.

An epic journey that spans desert and sea, through the bedchambers of a fearsome Eastern queen, and into the devastation of a conquered city, Unicorn Battle Squad is the story of a boy and his unicorn at the end of the world.

 

LOVE IN THE TIME OF DINOSAURS

“Imagine if Hemingway wrote Jurassic Park.”
-Jason Armstrong

DINOSAURS!

LOVE!

WAR!

MONASTIC LIVING!

Three days after his partner is bitten in half by a brachiosaur, a nameless monk meets the love of his life. Her name is Petunia. She is a dinosaur. But a twenty-year war between their species is about to come to a head, and only one will survive.

To be together the monk and the dinosaur must fight their way through hordes of pterodactyl samurai, anti-aircraft stegosaurs, gigantic kamikaze moths, and machine gun-wielding tyrannosaurs.

Love in the Time of Dinosaurs is a surreal war tale of forbidden love, betrayal, and magic kung-fu. Forget Jurassic Park, this is the greatest dinosaur story ever told.

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Here is what some awesome people have said about Love in the Time of Dinosaurs:

“Kirsten delivers an imaginative tale that’s brilliant, bright and bold.” – BRUCE TAYLOR, author of Kafka’s Uncle

“Guns, kung-fu, and dinosaurs…an absolute hallucinogenic thrill-ride that’s pure imagination and pure joy. Bring your own popcorn.”
–TIM CURRAN, author of Biohazard and Zombie Pulp

“…a world filled with complex politics, spirituality, history, and a sense of actual existence in some parallel dimension.” – Living With a Nerd

“There is such a strong surge of imagination and passion flowing through this book its hard to put down, even when its over…” – ERIC ROBINSON

“…something completely fresh, weird, exciting, and also comforting and familiar. This is a love story. It’s an adventure. It’s metaphysical, super cool, and fast-paced while remaining lyrical.” – KEVIN SHAMEL, author of Rotten Little Animals

“Kirsten Alene’s fiction is enchanting and classical, yet totally out of this world. She has the gift that all of my favorite writers possess. Namely, the ability to shatter reality as we know it without losing a grasp on humanity.” -CAMERON PIERCE, author of The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island

“Monks vs. dinosaurs with guns? Am I tripping and/or wet dreaming? NO, but with Kirsten Alene’s debut novel I can probably save myself the loot I was planning to spend on those peyote buttons.” – FORREST ARMSTRONG, author of The Deadheart Shelters

Love in the Time Dinosaurs is available online here.

Other writers of the New Bizarro Author Series, past and present include: Kevin Shamel, Eric Mays, David W. Barbee, Patrick Wensink, Caris O’Malley, Steve Lowe, Nicole Cushing, Kirk Jones, Eric Hendrixson, and James Steele.

Reading the first novels of these up and coming authors is the perfect way to get into the Bizarro Fiction Genre.

CHIAROSCURO

was printed and distributed in Salt Lake City in the winter of 2009. It is a handmade collection of poems, bound in felt, written for and inspired by the shadows and lights of the Salty city.

A total of 100 numbered copies were distributed.