Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of many science fiction and dark fantasy works, including sixteen novels, many comic books, and more than three hundred published short stories, novellas, and vignettes collected into more than twenty collections. They have also written numerous scientific papers.
Novels
Silk (1998, Penguin-Putnam; 1999, Gauntlet Press) Threshold (2001; Penguin-Putnam) The Five of Cups (2003; Subterranean Press) Low Red Moon (2003, Penguin-Putnam; 2004, Subterranean Press) Murder of Angels (2004; Penguin-Putnam) Daughter of Hounds (2007; Penguin-Putnam) Beowulf (2007; HarperCollins; novelization of 2007 film) The Red Tree (2009; Penguin-Putnam) The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (2012, Penguin-Putnam; 2014, Centipede Press) Blood Oranges (writing as Kathleen Tierney; 2013, Penguin-Putnam) Red Delicious (writing as Kathleen Tierney; 2014, Penguin-Putnam) Cherry Bomb (writing as Kathleen Tierney; 2015, Penguin-Putnam) Agents of Dreamland (2017, Tor) Black Helicopters (2018, Tor) The Tindalos Asset (2020; Tor) The Night Watchers (forthcoming 2025; Subterranean Press)
Short fiction collections Tales of Pain and Wonder (2000, Gauntlet Press; 2002, Meisha Merlin; 2008, Subterranean Press; 2016, PS Publishing) Wrong Things (with Poppy Z. Brite; 2001; Subterranean Press) From Weird and Distant Shores (2002 and 2022; Subterranean Press) To Charles Fort, With Love (2005; Subterranean Press; 2018, PS Publishing) Alabaster (2006; Subterranean Press; expanded edition reissued as Alabaster: Pale Horse 2014, Dark Horse Comics) A is for Alien (2009; Subterranean Press; 2015, expanded edition from PS Publishing) The Ammonite Violin & Others (2010; Subterranean Press; 2018, PS Publishing) Two Worlds and in Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) (2011; Subterranean Press) Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart (2012; Subterranean Press) The Ape's Wife and Other Tales (2013; Subterranean Press) Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume Two) (2015; Subterranean Press) Dear Sweet Filthy World (2017; Subterranean Press) Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales (2018, Centipede Press; 2019, Subterranean Press) The Dinosaur Tourist (2018; Subterranean Press) The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (2019; Tachyon Publications) A Little Yellow Book of Fever Dreams (2019; Borderlands Press) Comes a Pale Rider (2020, Subterranean Press) The Variegated Alphabet (2021, Subterranean Press) Vile Affections (2021, Subterranean Press) Cambrian Tales: Juvenilia (2021, Subterranean Press) Bradbury Weather (2024, Subterranean Press) Bright Dead Star (2025, Subterranean Press)
Short hardbacks In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers (2002; Subterranean Press) The Dry Salvages (novella) (2004; Subterranean Press) Frog Toes and Tentacles (2005; Subterranean Press) Tales from the Woeful Platypus (2007; Subterranean Press) Living a Boy's Adventure Tale (2024; Subterranean Press) Zoetrope Bizarre (2025; Subterranean Press)
Chapbooks Candles for Elizabeth (1998; Meisha Merlin Publishing) A Study for "Estate" (2000; Gauntlet Press) On the Road to Jefferson (2002; Subterranean Press) Waycross (2002; Subterranean Press) Trilobite: The Writing of Threshold (2003; Subterranean Press) Embrace the Mutation (with J. K. Potter; 2003; Subterranean Press) Alabaster (2003; Camelot Books) Mercury (2004; Subterranean Press) The Worm in My Mind's Eye (2004; Subterranean Press) False/Starts (2005; Subterranean Press) A Little Damned Book of Days (2005; Subterranean Press) The Merewife: A Prologue (2005; Subterranean Press) Highway 97 (2006; Subterranean Press) The Black Alphabet: A Primer (2007; Subterranean Press) Tails of Tales of Pain and Wonder (2008; Subterranean Press) B is for Beginnings (2009; Subterranean Press) Sanderlings (2010; Subterranean Press) The Crimson Alphabet: Another Primer (2011; Subterranean Press) The Yellow Book (2012; Subterranean Press) Black Helicopters (2013; Subterranean Press) False/Starts II (2015, Subterranean Press) The Aubergine Alphabet: A Fourth Primer (2017; Subterranean Press) The Chartreuse Alphabet: A Fifth Primer (2018; Subterranean Press) Refugees (2020; Subterranean Press)
Uncollected short fiction (excluding chapbooks) "A Key to the Castleblakeney Key" (The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, 2011; Harper Voyager) "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics" (The Book of Silverberg: Stories in Honor of Robert Silverberg, 2014; Subterranean Press)
Sirenia Digest
"Madonna Littoralis" (Sirenia Digest #1, December 2005; reprinted in Fantasy Magazine #2, 2006; Wildside Press) "Untitled 13" (Sirenia Digest #1, December 2005) "Orpheus at Mount Pangeum" (Sirenia Digest #2, January 2006) "Pony" (Sirenia Digest #2, January 2006) "Bridle" (Sirenia Digest #3, February 2006; reprinted in Street Magicks, Prime Books, 2016) "Eisoptrophobia - A Sketch" (Sirenia Digest #3, February 2006) "Untitled 17" (Sirenia Digest #3, February 2006) "Untitled 20" (Sirenia Digest #4, March 2006) "pas-en-arriere" (Sirenia Digest #5, April 2006) "For One Who Has Lost Herself" (Sirenia Digest #5, April 2006) "Ode to Edvard Munch" (Sirenia Digest #6, May 2006; reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, Running Press, 2008 and By Blood We Live, Night Shade Books, 2009) "The Black Alphabet (Part One)" (Sirenia Digest #6, May 2006) "The Black Alphabet (Part Two)" (Sirenia Digest #7, June 2006) "The Cryomancer's Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)" (Sirenia Digest #8, July 2006) "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul" (Sirenia Digest #9, August 2006) "Untitled 23" (Sirenia Digest #10, September 2006) "In the Praying Windows" (with Sonya Taaffe, Sirenia Digest #10, September 2006) "The Ammonite Violin (Murder Ballad No. 4)" (Sirenia Digest #11, October 2006; reprinted in Dark Delicacies II, 2007; Carroll & Graf; Hauntings, Tachyon Publications, 2013) "The Lovesong of Lady Ratteanrufer" (Sirenia Digest #12, November 2006) "Metamorphosis A" (Sirenia Digest #12, November 2006) "The Voyeur in the House of Glass" (Sirenia Digest #13, December 2006) "Metamorphosis B" (Sirenia Digest #13, December 2006) "The Sphinx's Kiss" (Sirenia Digest #14, January 2007) "A Season of Broken Dolls" (Sirenia Digest #15, February 2007; reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Spring, 2007; Subterranean Press ) "Skin Game" (Sirenia Digest #15, February 2007) "In View of Nothing" (Sirenia Digest #16, March 2007) "Untitled 26" (Sirenia Digest #16, March 2007) "Night Games in the Crimson Court" (Sirenia Digest #17, April 2007) "Outside the Gates of Eden" (Sirenia Digest #18, May 2007) "The Steam Dancer (1896)" (Sirenia Digest #19, June 2007; reprinted in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, 2008; Subterranean Press and Steampunk Reloaded, 2010; Tachyon Publications) "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection" (Sirenia Digest #20, July 2007; reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Fall, 2007; Subterranean Press and Zombies: More Recent Dead, Prime Books, 2014) "Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert" (Sirenia Digest #20, July 2007) "Scene in the Museum (1896)" (Sirenia Digest #21, August 2007) "Untitled Grotesque" (Sirenia Digest #22, September 2007) "The Madam of the Narrow Houses" (Sirenia Digest #23, October 2007; reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, 2013; Running Press) "The Bed of Appetite" (Sirenia Digest #23, October 2007) "The Wolf Who Cried Girl" (Sirenia Digest #24, November 2007) "Untitled 31" (Sirenia Digest #25, December 2007) "The Crimson Alphabet (Part One)" (Sirenia Digest #25, December 2007) "The Crimson Alphabet (Part Two)" (Sirenia Digest #26, January 2008) "The Collector of Bones" (Sirenia Digest #26, January 2008) "Beatification" (Sirenia Digest #27, February 2008) "Pickman's Other Model" (Sirenia Digest #28, March 2008; reprinted in Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, 2010; PS Publishing and New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird, 2011; Prime Books) "Flotsam" (Sirenia Digest #29, April 2008; reprinted in Not One of Us #40 and The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2, 2009; Perseus Books) "Regarding Attrition and Severance" (Sirenia Digest #29, April 2008) "Rappaccini's Dragon (Murder Ballad No. 5)" (Sirenia Digest #30, May 2008) "Unter den Augen des Mondes" (Sirenia Digest #31, June 2008) "The Melusine (1898)" (Sirenia Digest #31, June 2008) "Derma Sutra (1891)" (Sirenia Digest #32, July 2008) "The Z Word" (Sirenia Digest #33, August 2008) "Untitled 33" (Sirenia Digest #34, September 2008) "I Am the Abyss and I Am the Light" (Sirenia Digest #35, October 2008, reprinted in Aliens: Recent Encounters, Prime Books, 2013) "Dancing With the Eight of Swords" (Sirenia Digest #36, November 2008) "Murder Ballad No. 5 (Sirenia Digest #37, December 2008) "Lullaby of Partition and Reunion" (Sirenia Digest #37, December 2008) "The Thousand-and-Third Tale of Scheherazade" (Sirenia Digest #38, January 2009) "The Belated Burial" (Sirenia Digest #38, January 2009; reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Fall, 2009; Subterranean Press and Vampires: The Recent Undead, Prime Books, 2011) "The Bone's Prayer" (Sirenia Digest #39, February 2009; reprinted in The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Prime Books, 2010) "A Canvas for Incoherent Arts" (Sirenia Digest #40, March 2009) "The Peril of Liberated Objects, or the Voyeur's Seduction" (Sirenia Digest #41, April 2009) "At the Gate of Deeper Slumber" (Sirenia Digest #41, April 2009) "Fish Bride" (Sirenia Digest #42, May 2009; reprinted in The Weird Fiction Review #2, 2011 and Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, Titan Books, 2015) "The Mermaid of the Concrete Ocean" (Sirenia Digest #43, June 2009; reprinted in The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, Roc, 2012 and Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep, Prime Books, 2015) "The Alchemist's Daughter (a fragment)" (Sirenia Digest #43, June 2009) "Vicaria Draconis" (Sirenia Digest #44, July 2009) "January 28, 1926" (Sirenia Digest #44, July 2009) "Werewolf Smile" (Sirenia Digest #45, August 2009; reprinted in The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, Roc, 2012) "Paleozoic Annunciation" (Sirenia Digest #45, August 2009) "Charcloth, Firesteel, and Flint" (Sirenia Digest #46, September 2009; reprinted in A Book of Horrors, 2011; PS Publishing) "Shipwrecks Above" (Sirenia Digest #46, September 2009; reprinted in Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women, Nightshade Books, 2015) "The Dissevered Heart" (Sirenia Digest #47, October 2009) "Exuvium" (Sirenia Digest #48, November 2009) "Untitled 34" (Sirenia Digest #49, December 2009) "Hydrarguros" (Sirenia Digest #50, January 2010; reprinted in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2, 2011; Subterranean Press) "The Eighth Veil" (Sirenia Digest #51, February 2010) "Persephone Redux (A Fragment)" (Sirenia Digest #51, February 2010) "Apsinthion" (Sirenia Digest #51, February 2010) "Houndwife" (Sirenia Digest #52, March 2010; reprinted in Black Wings II, 2012; PS Publishing) "Three Months, Three Scenes, With Snow" (Sirenia Digest #53, April 2010) "Workprint" (Sirenia Digest #53, April 2010) "Tempest Witch" (Sirenia Digest #54, May 2010) "Tidal Forces" (Sirenia Digest #55, June 2010; reprinted in Eclipse Four, 2011; Night Shade Books) "The Yellow Alphabet (Part One)" (Sirenia Digest #56, July 2010) "The Yellow Alphabet (Part Two)" (Sirenia Digest #57, August 2010) "Fairy Tale of the Maritime" (Sirenia Digest #57, August 2010) "John Four" (Sirenia Digest #58, September 2010; reprinted in A Mountain Walked, 2014; Centipede Press) "And the Cloud That Took the Form" (Sirenia Digest #59, October 2010) "On the Reef" (Sirenia Digest #59, October 2010; reprinted in Halloween, Prime Books, 2011 and Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, Titan Books, 2015) "The Prayer of Ninety Cats" (Sirenia Digest #60, November 2010; reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Spring, 2013; Subterranean Press and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction, Prime Books, 2014) "—30—" (Sirenia Digest #61, December 2010; reprinted in Magic City: Recent Spells, Prime Books, 2014)