Doc Wormwood and the Lair of the Daido-Shotheth

Doc Wormwood and the Lair of the Daido-Shotheth by Rod Redux
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When a miner turns up in Moosup ranting like a maniac and afflicted with something horrible, Deputy Bill Starr and the rest of the townsfolk turn to the mysterious Doc Wormwood. Soon, they find themselves up against horrors from another world. Can even Doc Wormwood save the day?

Rod Redux serves up a tale of Lovecraftian beasties terrorizing a small town in the old West. Narrated in the first person by the town deputy, an afflicted miner shows up and things unfold in fairly standard fashion.

Doc Wormwood and the Lair of Daido-Shotheth provides a lot of thrills in this novella. You get horribly outnumbered heroes, a crawl through a mine, a mysterious Doctor with equally mysterious gadgets, and gross monsters that combine creepy aspects of spiders with the Aliens of the film franchise of the same name. Sound good? It is!

Since it's a novella, there's not a lot I can divulge without giving away the whole shebang. I don't have any specific complaints although I did find it somewhat predictable. The first person narrater also tipped me off that not everyone was going to die. Those minor gripes aside, it was a really fun read.

In my experience, combining the Western genre with the horrors of H.P. Lovecraft always makes for an entertaining tale. With Doc Wormwood, Rod Redux further proves this point. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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