Short Cthulian Bit: The Spiraling Worm

If you follow me over social media (and you can find out how to at the little bio at the end of this post) you might have read my gushing praise for The Spiraling Worm a Cthulhu Mythos collection of short stories, interconnected by a common set of characters, some stories flowing from one to the next flawlessly. All the stories put together almost seem like a novel set in a Delta Green like universe.

I discovered the book while watching episode 193 of Game Geeks, the Agents of Oblivion review (A very good book BTW, Michael posted about it here and here) which referred me to their previous review of The Spiraling Worm book, episode 58 from way back in 2008. This book has been out for a while, how did I miss it?

I have read a lot of Cthulhu Mythos books, collections of HP Lovecraft’s works and those he inspired. The results can be hit or miss. I usually enjoy them but many collections are a mixed bag of gems and turds. So far my favorite Cthulhu Mythos anthology was Shadows over Baker Street, containing the wonderful (and available for free here) A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman. The Spiraling Worm just became my favorite anthology.

While reading it I had to go back and reread some of Lovecraft stories I had not read in a long time, The Shadow Out of Time and At the Mountains of Madness. Stories in the book weave the mythology of the Mythos in, what seems to me, fresh and modern ways. These days more and more I find myself passing along books I read so other might enjoy them, partly due to my desire of sharing a good book, and partly due to not having space to keep books I will probably never read again; this is not the case here! This book is going up on the shelf and I may need to get a new one to lend to friends. It is that good…

Kudos to David Conyers and John Sunseri for such wonderful stories and making me into a fan. If you’ve read it, you know how good it is, if you haven’t, read it, you won’t be sorry. Now to get The Eye of Infinity