In her new column for the New York Times, N.K. Jemisin turns the spotlight on four recent SF and fantasy releases, including a new Tor.com novella from Caitlin R. Kiernan.

CaitlÍn R. Kiernan has long been hailed as one of the pre-eminent authors of weird fiction, and her new novella, Agents of Dreamland (Tom Doherty, paper, $11.99), shows why. In this recursive, Lovecraft-inflected police procedural, two agents of the shadowy government group Y pursue the cult leader Drew Standish, whose activities seem to herald a Jonestown-like mass murder. But far more important than whether the killing can be stopped is whether it’s already too late, since the manhunt coincides with the appearance of a deadly extraterrestrial fungus. The clock is ticking, the Elder Beings have been invoked and possible futures have begun to solidify in ways that spell the end of humanity….

Kiernan’s writing — starkly visual, tongue in cheek and disturbingly visceral — carries the day as the story churns toward its uneasy conclusion. And since the door is left open for future stories (and other futures) featuring Immacolata and the Signalman, let’s hope Kiernan will delve further into their adventures.

Jemisin also looks at the seventh volume of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples ongoing SF comic Saga, the anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140. Read the entire article here.