Martians A Creature Author:Dave Kress In this sample of a creature--neither a novel nor merely a collection of short stories--Dave Kress draws readers into the life of Ray "Gnat" Smith?a "person without portfolio" and one of the strangest characters in contemporary fiction. A globe-trotting homebody, a hyperactive zilch, and the quintessential Brownian Particle all rolled into one, ... more »Gnat/Ray wanders across America and our world, buffeted by the allure and nausea of an earth inhabited by five billion homicidal psychopaths. The donut winos, diaper-wearing fashion-plates, clones, ghosts, water bugs, janitors, slam dancers, fish eaters, hippies, lecturers, masked men, skunks, rugs, superheroes, snipers, toys, and cooks whom Gnat lives among, mocks, and finally becomes are at once disturbingly familiar and reassuringly alien: in other words, Martians.« less