The Book of Yig

While at first glance this may seem like merely a collection of short stories sharing a theme, in this case relating to Yig and his serpent-men, this book is much more than that. As I read each story, it became clear that each successive story wasn’t just throwing in references to the previous tales- indeed, by the end it was clear there was an overarching story that is wrapped up in an appropriately named conclusion. It took me way too long to reach this point (cause apparently I’m a bit thick) but once I did it was like a lightbulb went off in my head and I eagerly started looking for connections.
Those who are fans of characters Harry Stubbs, Andrew Doran, and Wingate Peaslee and want more of them should definitely check this book out, as all of these occult detectives have their own monstrous adventures. I’m embarrassed to admit this is my first time reading Wingate Peaslee and I enjoyed it greatly - I’ve always meant to get to him, I’ve just never made the time. I’m going to make it a goal to fix that! Don’t let the fact these are continuing series intimidate any new readers - the authors have done a wonderful job making sure readers are able to hop in and follow along no matter how much they may have read about these characters’ previous adventures.
This book is definitely a must read for anyone who is looking for more stories about the cult of Yig and the serpent-men, or those who enjoy reptilian creature features. I look forward to reading more short story collections these authors release in the future!

My thanks to Netgalley for a review copy.

Amazing Anthology.
As anyone who reads a lot of Anthologys knows most of the time it is not easy to like every story - but I enjoyed all of them in this one.

I tend to like a lot of Lovecraftian stuff and if you are into modern interpretations of the Cthulhu Mythos and all the other gods Lovecraft imagined you should pick this up. I think Yig does not get a lot of love outside of Lovecraftian tabletop RPG campaigns and I really love that this Anthology centers around him.

the stories were great. I have loved the h p lovecraft stories and like how this expanded on them, without taking away from the originals.

Yig is, let's be honest, not in the top tier of Cthulhoid monstrosities. The only time I've ever won a game of Arkham Horror, the rising Old One was Yig. He's not even that horrible to look at; yes, a bloody great lizardman is an alarming prospect in its way, but compared to the tentacular strangeness or unspecified ickiness of a Cthulhu or Azathoth, it's practically homely. Even describing him as a Great Old One feels like those press releases describing a mildly successful new whatever as 'iconic'; he's at best a Middling Old One. Still, I requested this on Netgalley because it had a David Hambling story, and true to form, The Snake In The Garden takes his recurring protagonist Harry Stubbs through the streets around my gaff on the trail of more Mythos unsoundness. Given the theme of the book, you can guess which sort this time, but there are still some wonderfully creepy details along the way. It helps that, as will be a recurring theme, Yig proper is left to one side, serving more as a cultic focus for normal-sized lizardmen, who are a much more versatile antagonist. As it happened, later that day I was myself obliged to head to the exact same streets, by appropriately Lovecraftian vast and uncaring forces which know nothing of our human concerns*, and this story definitely played a part in the way I was left looking over my shoulder even more than people's uselessness at following the distancing regulations usually mandates.

The second story, by Matthew Davenport, appears also to be part of a series, but one I hope not to encounter again. It manages to combine some of my least favourite traits both of Yog-Sothothery (the narrator offers matter-of-fact summaries of Mythos entities like he's memorised the Call Of Cthulhu rulebook) and writing in general (broken-backed sentences like "Of the ones that I had failed to ally myself with, they tended to find themselves in the employ of those same militaries currently fighting for occult sides of the current global conflict"). Which raised the old question of how many stories one can bail on while still considering an anthology read rather than abandoned, and could have been a bigger problem given this would subsequently turn out not to be an anthology after all, despite the title, so much as a set of linked stories. Fortunately, next up was a solid piece from Mark Howard Jones, which I was still perfectly fine to follow. As the title Still Life With Death suggests, it's a pulp pastiche of sorts, which again manages to find some suitably skin-crawling uses for reptiles, as well as body horror transformations which reminded me of Machen's Novel Of The Black Seal. Its narrator is that familiar but engaging type, the mildly bohemian artist, and if his love interest is a little less useless than she might have been in a story done at the time, this is still accomplished without resorting to the empowering but anachronistic.

The last long story is Pete Rawlik's Revelations, which is a little prone to Mythos bingo. Yes, there's plenty you can change, and a fair bit you definitely should, when playing in Lovecraft's sandbox – but as soon as the story is so full of references that their main effect is cosy familiarity, you've come too far from the unsettling effect which was the whole point of the exercise. Especially if you start straying into territory from other derivative works that aren't in the public domain, and end up having to file off the serial numbers to reference disavowed agency 'Beta Blue'. That said, I couldn't resist a chuckle at the line "Last I heard you were working for the Brits [...]what was the name of that outfit, the Laundrette?" This is also the story where the sheer preponderance of aspidistras in the anthology tips over into unwitting comedy; I am now taken with the idea of a story about Orwell encountering the Mythos where the reader expects his dystopian novels will encode his warning to the world, but in fact it turns out to be the social satire. Anyway, for all that, Revelations does fit in some solid spookiness and derring-do.

Finally it's back to Hambling for a brief present-day Coda wrapping everything up. This is set outside Norwood - shocking, I know, but apparently the rest of the world does still exist, even if I'm currently forbidden from confirming that for myself. It's (some of?) the first fiction I've read set in our grim, masked new world, and also the first story in the book to play with the fact that nowadays, there are a worrying number of people who genuinely believe a secret and ancient reptilian race is manipulating humanity. For me, this was a fruitful enough idea that it could happily have been explored at greater length.

*The fact the other Sainsbury's closes on Crystal Palace match days, even while there's no audience in, because heavens forbid anything, let alone logic, and certainly not mere apocalypse, should ever impinge on football's right to derail all our lives.

This was a fun,Yig- themed Cthulhu Mythos book with some well known modern Mythos writers. Some stories were more engaging than others. The book would have benefited from an introduction. This anthology would appeal most to people already familiar with Yig, the Cthulhu Mythos, and the writers in the anthology.