Crypt of the Moon Spider Is a Fiendishly Imaginative Nightmare
For a decade now, Nathan Ballingrud has been churning out the kind of spellbinding genre fiction that makes him feel like a natural heir-apparent to the wondrous work of Ray Bradbury. His tales cross genres, exploit and explore subgenre conventions, or play with monsters in ways that few other authors can, and his 2023 debut novel The Strange proved he can explore that same sense of depth and wonder well beyond the bounds of horror fiction. Now, with Crypt of the Moon Spider, Ballingrud has again leaped across genres and the confines of our physical world to deliver something bold, dynamic, and haunting, a dark fantasy that blends science fiction, myth, and pure terror into something only Ballingrud could write.
Set in an alternate version of 1923 where space travel is already possible and humanity has begun to colonize the moon, Ballingrud’s novella charts a lunar landscape covered in mysterious forests and a legend of massive spiders that used to roam them, spinning silk that’s now the only evidence of their existence. It’s into this world that the author drops Veronica Brinkley, who’s been placed in a mental institution on the moon by her husband, where she’s meant to be treated for alleged “dark” spells. There, she meets Dr. Cull, who assures Veronica he can cure her with an experimental new treatment using moon spider silk to repair the human brain. Fascinated and unnerved in equal measure by her circumstance, Veronica gives herself over to the treatment, only to find herself at the center of a web of secrets that will unleash chaos on the moon, and give birth to a new lunar age in which old legends might walk free again.
The first in a planned series dubbed the Lunar Gothic Trilogy, Crypt of the Moon Spider is a slim volume clocking in at little more than 100 pages, but anyone who’s read Ballingrud’s short fiction knows he doesn’t need a long runway to soar. The very concept of this book, evoked by the incredible title, makes it a rich vein for any genre reader, a premise that demands to be explored further, and because Ballingrud knows this, he’s able to approach his story with dazzling economy. Our knowledge of the wider world of the story is built entirely on what characters already know, and what they’re willing to share with each other, and Ballingrud wastes no time attempting to justify this strange and wondrous reimagining of the lunar surface. It simply is, and the sheer confidence of the prose on the page is enough to sell it.
Style is certainly there in spades as well. Ballingrud has long been one of the most beautiful genre writers to read on a sentence-by-sentence level, and he carries that gift forward here as he takes us through a Spartan sanitarium, a strange lunar cave, and more. But there’s another gift in Ballingrud’s prose beyond stylistic beauty. His grasp of character is astonishing, and his ability to thread key emotional beats through a complex yet remarkably short piece of fiction is arguably unparalleled in the world of horror right now. It’s a novella that feels like an epic, from the scope of its world to the depth of its feeling.
If you still haven’t given Nathan Ballingrud’s fiction a try, Crypt of the Moon Spider will serve as a wonderful introduction to his versatility, his talent, and his imagination. If you’re already a Ballingrud fan, this will be another essential piece of work from one of genre fiction’s finest current practitioners.
Crypt of the Moon Spider is available now wherever books are sold.
Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire who’s been writing about entertainment for more than a decade. His writing about movies, TV, comics, and more regularly appears at SYFY WIRE, Looper, Mental Floss, Decider, BookPage, and other outlets. He lives in Austin, Texas, and when he’s not writing he’s usually counting the days until Christmas.