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This Transformation Makes Author Blue

Despite raised eyebrows from critics, author Whitley Strieber swore that his 1985 bestseller, Communion, a tale of abduction by extraterrestrial beings, was the real thing – and indeed it was classified as nonfiction. But now with Strieber's sequel, Transformation (William Morrow), hitting bestseller lists, more critical queries have been raised – and The Los Angeles Times, where the book will hit No. 10 this coming Sunday, has placed Transformation in its fiction compendium.

“As I looked at this book, I concluded it had to be fiction,” said Los Angeles Times book editor Jack Miles, who read us an excerpt from the book: “I found myself being led along by two dark blue beings about 3 1/2 to 4 feet tall...” Said Miles: “The real question, I think, is for those other book reviews who've put it on their nonfiction lists. Do they believe these dark blue fellows actually exist in the world?”

Strieber, naturally, is none too pleased to have what he says are accounts of real-life experiences interpreted as make-believe. “It's a reprehensible thing,” he told us. “My book is a true story. The fact that the visitors are real is very difficult for certain people to face . . . Placing this book on the fiction list is an ugly example of exactly the kind of blind prejudice that has hurt human progress for many generations.”

Excerpted under the provisions of Fair Use from
Newsday, Inside NY, October 10, 1988, p.11
© 1988 Newsday Inc.

Strieber: I've Done Enough Alien-ation

Whitley Strieber, author of Communion and its sequel, Transformation (Morrow) – allegedly nonfiction books about Strieber's abduction by extraterrestrial visitors – says readers have heard the last from him about creatures from outer space. “I'm going back to writing fiction,” says the writer, though some critics argue he never left.

Says Strieber: “I have said my piece about the visitors. There's no point in talking and writing about them further, in the absence of physical proof [that they exist].” That doesn't mean you've heard the last of Strieber on aliens in any medium, however. The movie version of Communion, starring Christopher Walken and Lindsay Crouse, will be released this spring.