Dark Gray

My father is the Rev. Daimon Keith. At the age of twenty, he was abducted near a school playground by small gray aliens. Indeed, Daimon was taken up into UFOs not just that once, but from infancy, and over and again. It caused him to devote his middle years to the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ, Time Traveler, and later Scionetics.

Rosa "Flake" Rosch is a postmodern orphan. She's forgotten her mother, and her notorious abductee father Deems has vanished—again. Dark Gray is Rosa's unreliable memoir of her father's zany life, from his hapless prankster youth in Australia to apotheosis as a UFO guru in the 21st century. It's the story of Rosa's indomitable mother, her weird quasi-brother Ben, Zelda the horsewife, and our whole tormented era, as we blast into hyperreality.

Tilted on the hard slab, he knows the heavy stink of the place. What awful crap do they suck up with those lipless little mouths? The gray doctor touches his forehead with a needle—sharp, glinting—and pushes it hard into his skull.

"That life may simultaneously reduce the living to both laughter and despair is a subject few novelists tackle in one bite. Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes succeed in the near-impossible task. Dark Gray stands as one of the two great realist novels to tackle the notoriously non-realist theme of contact with extraterrestrials. It resides on the same (astral) plane as Alison Lurie's magisterial Imaginary Friends.… A quite brilliant achievement."
     —Rosaleen Love, author of The Total Devotion Machine

Finalist for the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award.

Damien Broderick was an Australian science fiction author, editor, critic, and futurist renowned for his intellectually ambitious speculative fiction and influential nonfiction on science, technology, and the future. The author of numerous novels, short stories, essays, and critical studies, Broderick explored themes such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, transhumanism, space exploration, consciousness, and the long-term evolution of humanity. His work combined rigorous scientific concepts with imaginative storytelling, making him a significant voice in hard science fiction and contemporary speculative literature. In addition to his fiction, Broderick contributed extensively to science communication, literary criticism, and futurist thought. Damien Broderick remains widely respected for his contributions to science fiction, transhumanist studies, future studies, hard SF, and the exploration of emerging technologies and human potential.

Rory Barnes is an Australian science fiction author known for his imaginative speculative fiction, young adult science fiction, and collaborative novels exploring time travel, alternate realities, future societies, and the impact of technology on human life. A prolific contributor to Australian genre literature, Barnes has authored and co-authored numerous acclaimed novels, including works with fellow science fiction writer Damien Broderick. His fiction combines scientific ideas, adventure, humor, and thought-provoking explorations of social change, making his work popular with both adult and young adult readers. Rory Barnes remains recognized for his contributions to science fiction, speculative fiction, time-travel fiction, young adult literature, and contemporary Australian genre storytelling.