‘Agate Way’ – Laird Barron (Tor Books)

 


Page Count: 37 Pages

You can read ‘Agate Way’ over at Reactor if you fancy it; I visit very irregularly so completely missed this tale when it appeared last year, story of my life really… ;o)

No free read for me, not this time. I felt like following ‘Acquired Taste’ with a much shorter read and came across ‘Agate Way’ whilst in the middle of finding out that Nathan Ballingrud is actually a real writer (and not just a literary creation of Clay McLeod Chapman). I’m not afraid to own up to my mistakes, just don’t laugh at me too much (I’m feeling fragile)?

Anyway, lets take a little trip down ‘Agate Way’; just a little one though, you wouldn’t want to end up lost. Not here…

A pair of sisters are hired to find--and if necessary, dispose of--whatever is killing neighborhood pets in a dying town. No-one told them that people have been going missing as well, now Casey and Tara are about to find out that ‘nature never tires, she never rests…’

Sometimes, you read a story and by the time you reach the end, you have just as much idea of what is happening as you did when you started. None at all. That’s what I found in my journey along ‘Agate Way’. There was a dying town that’s somehow growing at the same time. Take one step off the main street and you’ll be somewhere else entirely; don’t even think of trying to make it back, just concentrate on trying to stay alive. Not that it will do you any good. Casey and Tara will find out, the hard way, that coming home is never a good thing, no matter how many times you think you’ve found it.

And it all works, everything fits together perfectly, you just never really find out just why it all happened. Or maybe I was meant to see it but just missed it entirely, it wouldn’t be the first time that has happened to me ;o)

Either way, I got to the end of ‘Agate Way’, deliciously spooked by what had happened but with no idea why it happened, or why it happened to Casey and Tara. And you know what? That’s absolutely fine by me because in the best traditions of the best cosmic horror, I don’t think you’re meant to puzzle it out, just experience it.

With ‘Agate Way’, Barron shows us (well, me…) that cosmic horror isn’t just about the cosmos being far beyond mortal comprehension etc. There are other realms that will drive you to insanity just as easily, teeming with so much life that you’ll never get your head round it. Dimensions so vast that they literally have to fold in on themselves, just to fit into our plane of existence. And what moves through these realms isn’t just happy to settle for the occasional pet dog or cat… You just have to look inward rather than out, that’s all.

Cosmic horror is just as much about the journey as it is the destination and Barron takes us on a journey that, like nature, just happens voraciously. The kind of cosmic horror that will show you the end stages of entropy… And then what comes next. At this point, it won’t surprise you to find out that I loved it. Some things are just inevitable and Barron makes this really clear but, at the same time, still manages to get us to hope, at least twice, that things could be different.

Like I said at the top, ‘Agate Way’ is a free read or you can fork out, a little more than the cost of a can of coke, and have a copy for yourself. Either way, make sure you read ‘Agate Way’, it’s well worth your time.

Comments

  1. Bookstooge3 February 2026 at 01:29

    I read some of Barron's "Isaiah Coleridge" series and gave up after the second book. It was way too bleak and the only good was that the main character wasn't as bad as the bad guys :-(

    ReplyDelete

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