With the recent release of Yorgos Lanthimos's film, Poor Things, and two other Frankenstein movies slated for 2025 release - one from Guillermo Del Toro for Netflix, and another in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s theatrical The Bride - Mary Shelley's shadow continues to loom large as a source of inspiration for modern-day horror talents. Enter into this fray, Crypt of the Moon Spider, Nathan Ballingrud's latest novella and first in the Lunar Gothic trilogy for Tor Nightfire.

As with Ballingrud's previous release, The Strange, the author presents us with a fantastical alternate history and a voyage to the stars more in keeping with the imaginings of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs than Neil deGrasse Tyson. In Crypt, it is 1923 and Veronica Brinkley has been entrusted by her husband into the care of Dr. Cull of Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy on Earth's moon. The clinic has been built upon a tomb that once housed the legendary moon spider, and although this species is no more its webs still cling to the treetops of the moon's forest surrounding Barrowfield Home.

Veronica is a waifish sort, the type of person upon whom events occur to and are heaped upon with little care or who lack any awareness of their own power for agency. Her victimhood is learned, instilled upon her by her own mother as a child in their Nebraska farmhouse who taught her that her life is not her own and that women exist only in the wake of men. Mother's is an old-fashioned viewpoint in lockstep with the times -- the suffrage movement, if it existed at all in this askew historical, would not yet have led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which itself would only be a couple of years old in Veronica's adulthood. Women are second-class citizen, and Veronica's institutionalization has little to do with her own wants or desires so much as her husband's, who has consigned her away off-planet in an effort to wash his hands of her entirely. She's passed from one man to another in a series of victimizations that culminate, but do not end, in an unorthodox medical procedure involving moon spider silk and intracranial surgery.

With both Crypt of the Moon Spidery and The Strange, I've found an awful lot to love about Ballingrud's alternate histories and star-flung exploits. What they lack in scientific rigor they make up for with fun and spectacle. He clearly has a vision with these tales, and he does a fantastic job realizing them. The modern technologies and antiquated world views of the 1920s setting provide intriguing dichotomies against the fantastical lore, and its impact on the sciences, upon which these worlds are built. Ballingrud presents us with imagery that alternates between the marvelous and the terrifying in equal measure, granting us visions that are both awe-inspiring and chill inducing in their terrestrial and extraterrestrial horrors, and the mishmash of ideas and concepts he weaves together are keenly unlike anything else you're likely to read. Or, as Tyson might more eloquently put it, with Ballingrud, we got a bad-ass over here.

You can usually be guaranteed of an excellent read from Mr Ballingrud. This is probably my favorite piece of his work. It’s horror. It’s science fiction, it’s really creepy. It’s a five star read through and through.

Horror fiction writers: this is how you do it

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. Release date 27-Aug-2024.

Crypt of the Moon Spider is a dark and dreamy tale of horror, corruption, and identity spun into the stickiest of webs.

Years ago, in a cave beneath the dense forests and streams on the surface of the moon, a gargantuan spider once lived. Its silk granted its first worshippers immense faculties of power and awe.

It’s now 1923 and Veronica Brinkley is touching down on the moon for her intake at the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy. A renowned facility, Dr. Barrington Cull’s invasive and highly successful treatments have been lauded by many. And they’re so simple! All it takes is a little spider silk in the amygdala, maybe a strand or two in the prefrontal cortex, and perhaps an inch in the hippocampus for near evisceration of those troublesome thoughts and ideas.

But trouble lurks in many a mind at this facility and although the spider’s been dead for years, its denizens are not. Someone or something is up to no good, and Veronica just might be the cause.


My first experience with this author but will not be the last. A very good, very creepy short novella that should appeal to all horror fans, as it did for me:)

We humans on earth try to survive and make do and good within our own perplexing lives and frailties but unfortunately things break, and can and can’t be undone, and one may seek out cures of all kinds and if all else fails there is one on a distant moon involving a home and spiders.
Book a seat on a shuttle to this destination, seats are limited and expensive!

One day in 1923 a Veronica Brinkley was voluntarily handed over in custody by her husband for Treatment of the Melancholy at Barrowfield home.
The complexities of her dilemma upon earth along with the anxieties and frailties of what to come are well crafted necessary elements hooking the read in upon a moon amongst spidery matters and frightening minutes within a metamorphosis of one Veronica with a deeply effective human tragedy.

Upon a moon amidst the immeasurable cosmos denizens of human and spider entities be awaiting with a infusion of human frailty and the macabre and ancient holy wonder in a mesmeric manifestation of gothical grotesque excellence penned by Nathan Ballingrud with a phantasmagoric procession of monstrous delights.

4,5 stars. Been saving this for the right day. Since I have a few days off I took it w/ me to a deserted beach and pretended it was the forested moon of Ballingrud’s imagination. This is a wild ride y’all and just the start. I love how Ballingrud (in this and THE STRANGE and some of his other stories) abandons reality for ripe fields of dreams. He does it without looking back and something wondrously unshackled is born. His prose sings, as you can now expect.

There is more medical horror here than I expected but that made it all the more surprising and terrifying. There are lunar landscapes and spiders; lost mafioso and secret cabals; candlelit underground crypts and decaying gods.

It did not reach the height, for me, of the world of “The Butcher’s Table” and “The Atlas of Hell,” but this is lunar gothic is a close second. I seriously cannot wait to see where this story goes next because honestly, it could go anywhere.

Anyone who has read the ‘The Butcher’s Table’ knows Ballingrud writes one hell of a novella. Now with his latest release, he just may have become a master of the form.

‘Crypt of the Moon Spider’ deals with a heavily troubled woman who is sent to an asylum on the moon by her husband. She joins a group of patients undergoing a radical surgical procedure, one that would make David Cronenberg cringe.

This may be an alternate earth/moon during an alternate early 1900s, but the sci-fi elements haunt the background as SPIDER becomes a psychological body horror creature feature that will have readers craving the second installment in this planned trilogy.

This is some seriously weird top notch terror that can be enjoyed in one manic sitting.

An interesting dark and surreal horror story, with shades of science fiction, steampunk and just pure dreaming or nightmare. The writing was good, the imagination was vivid. If you are looking for something that makes logical sense in our real world forget it. It doesn’t even take place in our real world but in some alternate fantasy universe. I love stories that are this weird and surreal, so this suited me well. Don’t read if spiders creep you out too much, but then you can tell that by the cover art, which I also like.

This short novella was suuuper gross & creepy!! (Tho be warned, it focuses a lot more on medical horror than I had first expected.) That being said, while I was engaged the whole time, I don't think this is a story that will stay with me that long; it was fine & fun, but not an all-time favourite. I'll definitely check out more from this author in the future!

Wow! Body horror monster mash set on the moon in the early 1900s. This is some really good writing. I don't want to give much away. A young woman gets sent to the moon to receive treatment for depressi9n and other things. She quickly discovers the moon hides many secrets and monstrous things. I can't wait for the next one! So many spiders!