Randolph "Dilda" Carter

4-1/2 stars; almost gave it five stars but it was a little too derivative of H.P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness so I subtracted half a star for lack of originality in plot. That said, it's like The Whisperer in Darkness on acid and speed. Some of the amnesia/flashback is a little hard to swallow but, hey, we're dealing with the supernatural here so let's not be too picky. The ending once again reminded me of Michael Shea's The Autopsy or that movie Fallen with Denzel Washington.

Barron gets it on but with none of his wiggy philosophical enigma; we know what's goin' on here.

The great thing about Barron now is he keeps mining the same vein/theme but in so many different ways. He's got his own Mythos going (I know I'm stretching it a bit) but he's upped the creep and despair factor since The Imago Sequence and Other Stories with more solid endings that are just going to make you wonder if he doesn't know something about the universe that we don't.

Barron has now shown he can go the distance in story, novella, and novel. He should be better known.