Steven Sidor

2 1/2 stars. This is the second book in The Institute of Singular Antiquities series and really doesn't improve on the first book, in my humble opinion. The cast of characters (Rom, Evangeline, McTroy, and Wu) from book one are reunited this time at a lonely, isolated mansion in search of a mysterious animal known as the Beast. The group is one of three "teams" challenged with finding, capturing, or killing the Beast by eccentric millionaire Oscar Adderly.
Rom and crew (and the other teams) soon find out that they are in for more than they bargained for and the body count starts to rise. Throw in Adderly's bizarre family, wife Viv who's a medium and their spooky twin siblings, Claude and Cassi, and the plot takes on a couple of additional spins. It is soon apparent that the Beast has more layers than the intrepid hunters are led to believe.
There's just not enough interesting action (too many mansion scenes) for the plot to keep driving forward for this reader.
It's certainly not a bad book, but there are plenty of better ones to spend time with. I don't know if a third book is planned for the series, but for this reader, there won't be.… (more)

Fans of Indiana Jones may find this a solid read. It has an archeologist, an Egyptian digging site, mummies, and curses. Romulus Hardy, the story's archeologist/protagonist, is an odd character that I had trouble warming up to. His character flaws and ways of speaking and thinking were less than endearing, making him too flawed in the hero/leading man department. The other members of this supernatural story (Rex McTroy, Evangeline Waterston, and Yong Wu) are each well-developed characters with unique backstories that I grew to care about.
Hardy is hired by Evangeline's wealthy father to bring an Egyptian mummy back to the States. Hardy achieves the first part of the assignment, but the mummy is stolen by zombies-like creatures who are bent on returning the mummy to life. At that point, it's up to Hardy and his crew to try and keep that from happening and finish the job he was hired to do. Along the way, some decent plot twists kept me reading what bordered on a somewhat plodding novel.
The ending was just satisfying enough to encourage me to read the second book in the series.… (more)

Within the larger franchise of Arkham Horror fiction, S. A. Sidor's novels have established their own serial continuity, starting with The Last Ritual and developing in Cult of the Spider Queen. Daniel Strange's cover art of this third installment Lair of the Crystal Fang shows three characters from the second book: Maude Brion, Jake Williams, and Andy Van Nortwick. These three are reunited in this tale, but they are not its only heroes. Returning the setting to Arkham allows Sidor to bring in a surfeit of other "investigators" from the Arkham Horror games. Urchin Wendy Adams, mayor Charlie Kane, and psychologist Carolyn Fern are also central to the story, and reporter Rex Murphy and researcher Mandy Thompson have important roles. Sidor seems to have realized that each such character appearing is a selling point in a piece of literature like this one.

A more general concept that this novel seems to have carried over from the Arkham Horror card game is the basic emphasis on trauma. Jake's physical trauma from the South American adventure of the previous book includes what would be a Weakness card in the game: Leg Injury. Maude is definitely suffering from mental trauma.

Stylistically, this volume was a bit inferior to its predecessors. "Unpindownable" (50) would be all right in contemporary 21st-century humor, but it's a clinker in pulp era horror. I was similarly put off by "torpefy" (131) and several other word choices and phrasings in the course of the book. As before, Sidor managed to strike a mid-point between weird horror and pulp action that is consistent with the mood of the games (as contrasted with Yog-Sothothery more generally).

The Lair of the Crystal Fang plot centers on the Arkham sewers, and it features a serial killer, witches, and gangsters. It moves along at a brisk pace with short chapters and frequent changes of focus. I wasn't blown away by anything here, but it was an adequate addition to this now-sprawling set of game-based horror books.… (more)