Lerman, Eleanor
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1952- ) US author and award-winning poet who has published several books of verse since 1973. Despite its title, her first novel Janet Planet (2011) is not sf. Lerman's second novel is the sf Radiomen (2015), in which Earth-based shortwave radios are found to form part of an Alien-run network that broadcasts prayers across the universe. The middle-aged female protagonist – who as a child once saw one such alien – interacts with others linked to this enigma, including a psychic belonging to the "Blue Awareness" cult which is a pointed Parody of Scientology, and a neighbour descended from the Dogon tribe of Mali which (according to some popular theories of Pseudoscience) was long ago visited by extraterrestrials who communicated then-futuristic astronomical knowledge. In Lerman's version of this legend, the aliens also presented the Dogon with a special, unearthly breed of dog, still extant, which also proves to be of importance. Mysteries of Parallel Worlds and Religion are obliquely illuminated. Radiomen won the 2016 John W Campbell Memorial Award. [DRL]
Eleanor Lerman
born New York: 6 January 1952
works (highly selected)
- Radiomen (Sag Harbor, New York: The Permanent Press, 2015) [hb/Ian Kirschner]
- The Stargazer's Embassy (Woodstock, New York: Mayapple Press, 2017) [pb/Judith Kerman]
links
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