What Swallows the Light – John Durgin, Gage Greenwood, and Andrew Van Wey

5 stars

God, where to start?? All three of these stories completely blew me away for completely different reasons. From anxiety to heartbreak to staring with my mouth open in shock, What Swallows the Light was an absolute gem all the way through.

Suffocating Skies: The atmosphere in this story has got to be one of the creepiest, most anxiety-inducing atmospheres I’ve read! That weird worm alien creeping about after Jerome about did me in…..not to mention what it actually does later. There was so much action and drama in this, and I loved every second of it.

We Were Who We Were: I’m submitting a complaint to the complaint department because DAMN IT, GAGE, I’m just over here trying to read squirmy alien horror, and you’re ripping my heart out! I was in a stranglehold from the minute this story started, and I felt so so sorry for Tess as a child. She had no idea what was going on with Jay but was so scared of and for him. Mahazael really had me thinking at the end about how I viewed the events of the story until GAGE gave me that gut punch with Tess and Jay 😭😭

Dark Matter Dreams: Holy God…..THE PIVOT! I totally expected this to be probes and white lights and science, but then Andrew gave me horrible nightmare reaper, and the story got so much deeper!  Tell me why I’m feeling sad and upset for probey, dissecting aliens???? Andrew, what have you done to me? The ending completely got me also. I wasn’t expecting it whatsoever, and now I’m sitting here extremely sad and blown away by what Andrew wrote.

You know what, I’m submitting a complaint about the whole book. It’s TOO. DAMN. GOOD! Top read of 2025???