★★★★☆ Horror fiction writers: this is how you do it

Crypt of the Moon Spider

Nathan Ballingrud

I am not a big fan of horror fiction. I think, however, that is because, as a general rule, it is so poorly done. I'm being unfair -- when I say "it is poorly done", what I mean is that it doesn't horrify me. I am not horrified by creepy-crawlies -- in fact, I spent more than 30 years of my life studying worms, so I think worms and bugs are kind of cool, very beautiful little machines, in fact. Blood and guts and gore also don't bother me.

What I find really scary is psychological terror -- the fear of losing oneself. Nameless fears -- the "nameless" part is important. As a filmmaker once remarked, if you want to really be scary, never show the audience the monster. Leave it to their imaginations -- the monster they imagine is always scarier than anything you can put on the screen. As soon as you show the monster, as soon as you name the fear, it becomes a concrete problem to be solved, and that will never be as frightening as the invisible and nameless.

In Crypt of the Moon Spider, Nathan Ballingrud does that. In fact, he does it a little TOO well. It is truly scary. (And not because of the spiders -- there are spiders, but they play a surprisingly small role in the story.)

In fact, I'm going to be a little inconsistent here, because my main compliant about Crypt of the Moon Spider is that I never knew what was going on, even at the end. The world-building feels vague and perfunctory. Much of the action takes place on the moon, and there are forests and spiders there. It is 1923, and there are regular shuttle flights from Earth to the Moon. This is obviously not the Moon as we know it, and I never figured out how the world of Crypt of the Moon Spider relates to this one we inhabit.

Probably that ambiguity contributes to the mind-numbing horror that Ballingrud produces so well here. But still, I was left unsatisfied at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for an advance reader copy of Crypt of the Moon Spider.

Crypt of the Moon Spider on Amazon

Goodreads review

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