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'Russian Dolls' had me legitimately creeped out. It was a confusing, surreal, and frankly horrifying account of the experimentation conducted by the Mi-Go. The unsettling atmosphere was well maintained throughout and I'm confident I'll be returning to this story again

'Night and Water' was simply par for the course; a story of DG's shadow war with the Karotechia (Nazi supernaturalists) that, while competently executed, brought nothing new to the table.

'Once More, from the Top...' elucidates the infamous Innsmouth raid that gave birth to Delta Green. By this account it was a much messier and more desperate an engagement than I'd have thought, and having the experience told through the eyes of one of the unwitting and inexperienced men in the thick of things served to greater highlight the shock and confusion. And Charlie Paskow is a character worth reading about

'Operation LOOKING GLASS' was sure as hell the right story on which to close the anthology. Holy shit. It is primarily a documentation of a first-hand encounter with a Great Old One (or, at least, a manifestation thereof). Instead of trying too hard to impress and failing instead with underwhelming the reader, I felt that a truly impressive balance was achieved here even with the slightly contrived format.

'Identity Crisis' is the first depiction I've seen of the Dreamlands in any DG text. It did a good job of combining the modernity of the DG setting with the inherently aged quality of the Dreamlands. The narrative itself was alright but not amazing, and the revelation (I haven't read it mentioned anywhere else) of the method by which a Human becomes a Ghoul was underwhelming.

'An Item of Mutual Interest' was a solid story about the efforts of the Nazis to discover and weaponise mythos knowledge and artefacts. It wasn't amazing by any stretch, but I can't really fault it either.

'Potential Recruit' was simply brilliant. Until reading this story I'd always had great difficulty understanding how anyone but those with the most tenuous link to reality could be enticed by a mythos cult, and how someone like that could possibly function undetected in society. Admittedly I have performed no great research on real-life cults to try. But damn if this story hasn't opened my eyes - and my mind - anyway

'Climbing the South Mountain' was very much unlike any other Cthuloid story I've read. Presented as an in-universe artifact of extended poem, it tells the story of one of the innocents unlucky enough to stumble into the hands (or other noodly appendages) of the Mi-Go and his subsequent experience.

'Pnomus' was enjoyably reminiscent of the works of Borges and one of Mieville's short stories - 'Details' - which was itself cyclically inspired by Lovecraft. It concerns itself with the power of language (and the concept of it being treated as just another dimension, like time and space) and the causal implications of the casual chronological transgressions of what I take to be the Great Race of Yith.

'Drowning in Sand' was interesting in that it concerned itself with a peon scientist within DG's rival organisation, MAJESTIC 12. It makes relatable MJ-12's rank and file - as far as they know, they're working for the good guys. Despite a slightly gimmicky presentation, the content was engaging and intriguing.

Having just recently finished 'DG: The Rules of Engagement', I'm kicking myself that I couldn't have first read 'The Dark Above', as its events directly preceded those of TRoE and share the very same protagonists. It was similarly well written, though markedly more shallow an experience - a shortcoming entirely forgivable considering the brevity of the piece.

I've read through all the short fiction, and one of the novels (novellas?). So far, those I've enjoyed the most for one reason or another are the following: Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Outsider, Herbert West - Reanimator, The Call of Cthulhu (strangely enough), Pickman's Model, and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (very surprisingly)

It was tricky at first keeping straight so many characters, each referred to with two or three different names, but that difficulty quickly fell to the wayside once the story really kicked off and I found myself in the thick of things. I appreciate greatly the stark frankness of the narrative - every body is thoroughly human (even though perhaps not literally) and absolutely no one is untouchable.

Despite his verbosity and apparent fondness for the comma, some of Chabon's essays have proven surprisingly persuasive. So far I especially recommend Ragnarok Boy and On Daemons & Dust, concerned with 'D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths' and Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy respectively.

Max Barry is, without a doubt in my mind, the most consistently amazing author I've had the pleasure of discovering.

I thought I'd just check it out, see what the opening was like. That was some time ago now, when I was planning to go to bed. Despite setting myself logical checkpoints ("I'll just finish this chapter..."), I couldn't help myself! A very addicting read thus far, and as engrossing as I've come to expect from Max Barry.

Why did nobody tell me this was a Cthulhu Mythos novel before I started it?! What a wonderful surprise!

Wow. There's an awful lot of skirting around describing the indescribable.

I'm in the home stretch now! Fewer than 50 pages remain! It will be a great relief to be freed from this damnably slow story.

What a curious case is Renfield

Van Helsing has just given a sizable monologue about the 'rules' that apply to Dracula. Man, there are some weird ones.

Pacing so slooooow D: I'm not web half way through this damn thing

Thankfully Dr Seward's Diary proves most interesting indeed, especially interspersed amongst the damnable Mina Murray's Journal.

The first four chapters, of Johnathan Harker's journal, were enjoyable. I understand why it is necessary to break the pacing with the next few chapters, which are primarily of Mina Murray's journal, but UGH. She is such a bore.

The last story, 'Honey Pie', was another good one, like the earlier ones. Touching, moving, profound. It gives the sense that Murakami must be drawing very heavily indeed on his own life experiences to write like this.

I'm calling it now - that story is going to prove my favorite of this whole collection.

THIS STORY IS AWESOME! 'Super-Frog Saves Tokyo'

The story 'Thailand' was alright, but nothing special. If there's one thing Murakami is good at, it's creating realistic, believable characters with some depth.