Book Review Blurb: There’s a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed by Edgar Cantero

Edgar Cantero is a GENIUS. Seriously. He has an incredible ability to write children who don’t read like pastiches, to write stories that are original and utterly compelling, and to do it all with a unique sense of darkness, style, sly wit, and delicious wry sensibility that resonates with me like nobody’s business…

You never know what’s real, what’s imagined, and what’s a lie until the very end. You never know if those distinctions even matter until the very end (and even sometimes don’t know after). Yet there’s never confusion or a sense of misdirection for the sake of generating attention or shock value – every word feels deliberately and carefully chosen to further the incredibly intricate stories, whether the story is short like this one or longer like his novels. It’s a brilliant writing style and grabs me every single time.

I generally dislike short stories; there’s never enough characterization for me and I rarely connect with the tale enough to truly enjoy them (unless they exist in already-established worlds populated by characters I already know and like). This is a short story. It is incredibly, perfectly Cantero-like. I LOVED IT. And if that doesn’t tell you what a master he is at storytelling, nothing else I can say will!