Today is Myths and Legends Day, a day dedicated originally to krakens but which I am blowing open a little bit to think about any myths and legends, especially new ones. In celebration of this day, I have read Nathan Ballingrud’s “Crypt of the Moon Spider,” released some six weeks ago.
Before I get to actually reviewing the book, some pre-reading thoughts. While I absolutely think the author should get as much as possible out of his successful publication, $18 for an 85-page novelette is too much. I bought this book new at Barnes & Noble and am still a little mad about the price tag.
Also, I am going to go ahead and call this a novelette. There is no clear designation that I’ve been able to find which dictates where that line between novella and novelette lies, but this feels like it’s short for a novella. Don’t be fooled by the page counts listed for this book. The story is 85 pages, precisely; not 112. There’s a preview chapter at the end for book two of the series that bolsters the page count.
On to the review!
I loved this book. I had trouble putting it down every time I opened it. It’s fast-paced, without much fluff and certainly without any dawdling. The couple of “slow” points felt appropriate: getting the protagonist to the story (which does not take long), some childhood flashbacks that are sometimes vaguely ominous and sometimes soaked in blood . . . Never are these slower moments wasted, though.
Because the story is set in the 1920s, readers should recall that the place of women was very different from what we have now, a century later. If you don’t recall it, though, the story will remind you.
In some ways, there is a predictability to the basic concept Ballingrud introduces: a woman suffering from some form of psychological distress (I hesitate to diagnose characters, especially as someone who does not have a psychological diagnosis myself) is sent to a distant asylum by a sexually frustrated husband; the doctor whose care she is under turns out to be nefarious and his henchman sadistic. It feels familiar.
Where it stands out is in its worldbuilding and its vivid writing. A silk-draped forest on the dark side of the moon, a cult of not-quite-human “scholars,” brains dripping with spider silk . . . And the legend of the moon spiders woven throughout. All of that, executed with descriptive prose that is sometimes grotesque, sometimes nearly poetic, sometimes desperate.
The book does lose a star because you really have to take some leaps of faith on certain plot points. They pay off and make sense if you’re willing to fill in some obvious blanks. I can see the unsaid pieces as sort of “part of the point” because of the neurosurgical procedures, but I know some folks will not be willing to make that jump.
I will be eagerly awaiting the sequel, Cathedral of the Drowned with the same kind of anticipation 14-year-old me counted down the days to Harry Potter book releases at Borders. It’s that kind of good.
A warning: this book is sometimes being labeled as sci-fi. That’s a little misleading. This book is not about a colony on the moon. It’s about an asylum on the moon. This is much more accurately pure horror that happens to be set on the moon. It’s barely sci-fi.
Cthulhuville 