Barrett Bowlin

When the aliens finally invade Earth—and there’s a non-zero chance they will—there will be no diplomacy. No peaceful exchange of ideas or technology or resources. Instead, there will be terror and plundering and vaporizing lasers and gigantic ships capable of leveling cities, and this is how the world will end, according to Dave Housley, in his new novel, Aliens Attack! These moments of reckoning? They come up a lot in Housley’s work.

At the end of 2015, after Cal Louise Phoenix had already taken multiple classes with one of her sociology professors, he invited her to his home. The invitation was presumably to talk about how Phoenix could proceed through the final months of her degree. Her professor had additional plans in mind. In Studies in Lechery (Atmosphere Press, 2024), Phoenix’s narrator details the subsequent sexual relationship, built on manipulation and deceit—an all-too-familiar journey, unfortunately.