'Professor Miranda Ventham is having bad dreams – nothing new in 1920s Arkham – but hers are horrifying glimpses of a dark future. Now seriously ill, she books herself into the new sanatorium, Stroud Institute. With luck, the town’s eldritch taint won’t reach her there. And yet the nightmares worsen. With the aid of her friend, parapsychologist Agatha Crane, they delve into the background of the sanatorium’s enigmatic director, Donovan Stroud. Plagued by doubts, delusions, and terrifying visions, Miranda must unravel the shrouded history of the Strouds before she is trapped in a labyrinthine nightmare. Something sinister lurks at its heart, and it longs to be set free.'
Hospitals are pretty scary places, and having to stay in one because you're too sick to get by on your own is probably one of the more frightening experiences that most people will come up against at some point in their lives. So when the hospital you're staying in starts to have strange things happening it it, gives you freaky nightmares, and may be connected to otherworldly beings intent upon the destruction and subjugation of mankind, it's not going to be a fun time.
In the Coils of the Labyrinth isn't your average Arkham Horror title. It's a book that plays things pretty close to its chest for much of the novel, and relies on a more subtle, insidious kind of horror to get under your skin.
It tells the story of Miranda Ventham, a professor at Miskatonic University. She lives alone in her modest apartment, teaches literature, and has a decent, enjoyable life. However, as she begins to grow more and more sick, she has to face the possibility that perhaps she's suffering from more than just a simple cold. When she gets diagnosed with tuberculosis she has the choice of either going to the local hospital, or trying out the new Stroud Insitute, a building that Miranda has watched slowly constructed on a plot of empty land in the middle of the city.
Having heard that patients at the hospital haven't been doing too well, and that the new Stroud Institute has had a few successes with its more unusual methods, Miranda decides to take her chances at the Institute. When she arrives she finds a building that's brand new, but that looks like it's been there for decades or more, ancient and modern at the same time. The interior layout is filled with twists and turns that seem designed to confuse. And she begins to have strange dreams about the place. Whilst she does begin to improve at the Institute, the uneasy feelings she has only intensify when more and more usual stuff starts to happen. Convinced that there's more to the Stroud Institute than there first appears, Miranda becomes determined to get to the bottom of it.
One of the things that this particular story does it capture the strange feeling of being sick. I'm sure we've all had at least one time when we can remember being sick enough that reality seemed to bend and warp around you. Whether it's a fever making patterns on the wall move, being convinced that someone's there to hurt you, or even just being that sick that you think you're going to die. Illness can have horrible effects on the mind. And David Annandale uses this to torment both Miranda and the reader. There are times in this novel where you start to question what you've read. Did that really happen, or was it just Miranda's illness messing with her?
And this is where the book excels, as taking those mundane moments, of living through hospital, of being stuck in your bed for hours at a time, unable to do anything, unable to talk to people, going through the same routines over and over and feeling like nothing is improving, and making them even worse by injecting the paranormal. If it wasn't for the fact that Miranda has a friend in the outside world who's investigating and finding paranormal horrors this story could believable pull a twist where there was nothing wrong at all.
Speaking of her ally, I have to talk a bit about Agatha Crane, her friend and fellow professor at Miskatonic. An expert in parapsychology, Agatha latches onto Miranda's stories of her experiences, having lived in Arkham for years she knows that the city is more than it first appears. Using her ability to actually get around in the real world, Agatha is able to do the legwork that Miranda can't and gets to go off on a particularly great side-adventure that's easily my favourite part of the book.
I won't spoil it too much, but Agatha and her husband, Wilbur, set off on a journey that will take them around the world, investigating ancient sites, and dealing with horrors that can bend and warp reality. They are some of the more tense and action heavy parts of the book, and also have the more overt horror elements, and it's great seeing an older couple getting into adventures and scrapes like that; especially Wilbur who is absolutely not equipped for it, but supports his wife through anything. I would love to see more stories with the two of them involved.
In the Coils of the Labyrinth is a slow, insidious horror that plays more on fears of hospitals and loss of health than having cthulian monsters chasing people down corridors (though there is some of that), and stands out amongst the other entries in the series. It takes risks, and tells a very different kind of story about two women rising up to take on forces beyond their comprehension. It might not be for everyone, it might freak you out a bit too much, but for me, it was a wonderfully twisted reading experience.
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