The Book of Yig: Revelations of the Serpent

With this middling volume, Hambling and Rawlik fail to justify devoting an anthology to one of the lesser-known Lovecraftian deities, Yig, the Father of Serpents. None of these five stories feature genuine scares, and all lack the unease Lovecraft’s cosmic menaces should instill. The strongest is Rawlik’s “Revelations,” which follows Wingate Peaslee, a character from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Out of Time,” as he investigates supposed alien abductions. Hambling’s “The Snake in the Garden,” set in 1927 London and featuring his series character, boxer-turned-detective Harry Stubbs, gets off to a solid start as Stubbs’s narration artfully suspends disbelief. But the story that follows, in which Stubbs investigates a flayed human skin, isn’t as strong, as the knowledge that the story will inevitably feature Yig gives away the mystery. Hambling also contributes the brief “Coda: The Return,” set in a 2020 with Covid very much in evidence, which sees intelligence agencies brokering a deal over an artifact sacred to Yig worshippers. Matthew Davenport’s “Andrew Doran and the Journey to the Serpent Temple” and Mark Howard Jones’s “Still Life with Death” are less than memorable, though they do convincingly capture the pulp feel of the original Weird Tales. This is only for the most diehard fans of the Cthuhlu Mythos.[em] (Apr.) [/em]