Limbus, Inc., Book III: A Shared World Experience
Edited by Brett Talley
JournalStone
July, 2016
Reviewed by Michael R. Collings

I am a fan of the first two Limbus, Inc., anthologies. I’ve looked forward to each, read each with particular enjoyment, and written at length about each. When I received a copy of Limbus, Inc., Book III, I had two immediate reactions: first, pleasure at seeing a couple of old friends named on the cover; and, second, concern over whether the excellences sustained in the first two volumes would be sustained in a third.

As it turned out, the list of ‘friends’ increased as I read stories by several writers I was largely unfamiliar with and whose tales intrigued and invited; and any concerns I had about excellences quickly evaporated.

The Limbus, Inc., anthologies are singular in their treatment of narrative. I am reminded, of all things, of Geoffrey Chaucer’s splendid Canterbury Tales, with its surface story of a pilgrimage to Canterbury, broken at precise intervals by stories related by each of the pilgrims. There is no pilgrimage in the Limbus, Inc., anthologies, but there is a quest—to discover, reveal, and otherwise explore the extent of Limbus, Inc., a mysterious, seemingly all-knowing, virtually all-powerful employment agency that has no apparent limits in time or space.

Brett Talley contributes the connective interludes in the anthology as he follows Malone, a Birmingham detective, who tackles the cryptic and particularly gruesome case of a young woman found murdered at a long-abandoned mine. The only clues: a mysterious image carved into her back, and, as the bottom of the shaft, a zip-lock bag containing papers. All that is legible through the plastic and the blood are the words “Inch by Inch and Row by Row.”

Turn the page…and there is Seanan McGuire’s “Inch by Inch and Row by Row,” an impressive re-imagining of themes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s small horror masterpiece, “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Beatrice Walden is perfectly named: “Beatrice” suggests ‘bringer of joy,’ and “Walden” echoes Thoreau’s pastoral landscape—here inverted to something threatening and death-bringing. Walden has been genetically altered until her body can reproduce toxic substances for her father’s research. Even though he is dead, she is still imprisoned by his wishes…until a representative of Limbus, Inc., offers her a way to join human society.  As with her father’s, however, Limbus’s wishes fail to account for Walden as an individual, as a person with her own wishes. As she develops her strengths and abilities, she becomes self-sufficient for the first time in her life, ultimately turning the tables on Limbus, Inc.

In Tally’s transitional “First Interlude: Whispers in the City of the Dead,” Malone receives a message with an attachment titled “Infamous,” sent by ‘Jack Rabbit’—a connection backward to Book II and forward to David Liss’s aptly named “Infamous.” In Liss’s story, Chip Dunstan is famous—rather, infamous—for having shot a young black man three years earlier. Now, unemployed, he lives with his mother, binge-eats Doritos, and blames everyone else for his hard times. Limbus, Inc., steps in and offers him a job at a phenomenal salary. All he has to do is live on the premises of a research institute, follow a few non-intrusive rules, and take care of test animals. But Chip isn’t satisfied to have his needs fulfilled: he doesn’t like his housemates, he doesn’t respond well when a co-worker rejects his advances, he just can’t keep himself from poking into things—and rooms—that are off limits. But he has excuses for doing so. He always has excuses. Until he discovers the real reason behind his aberrant behavior.

Talley’s “Second Interlude: It is Written” discloses that Chip Dunstan is more than a character in a story—he is a real person in Malone’s world, one who had earned Malone’s special hatred. By now, Malone is at a bookstore in Boston tracking another clue to the vicious death of the young woman…which leads him to another story.

Keith R. A. DeCandido’s “Right On, Sister!” begins in 1978. Wanda Jackson is barely holding her life together. Her boyfriend was killed during the blackout the year before, and now she lives with her harridan mother, working two jobs to keep herself and her grandmother in food. Life just gets worse, until finally she is contacted by Limbus, Inc., to interview for a job. Her special skill: she can talk people out of—and into—committing crucial actions at the precise moment needed. Unfortunately, that skill takes her into the darkest night of her life.

The “Third Interlude: The Unblinking Eye” aims Malone more directly toward the enigmatic “Jack Rabbit,” and into the fourth story, Jonathan Maberry’s “The Unlearnable Truths from the Case Files of Sam Hunter.” Hunter reprises his role in the first two Limbus volumes as an intrepid, hard-bitten (and hard-biting) detective…and werewolf. He is sitting in his office contemplating sleep when the phone rings. Limbus. With a job. He is to interrupt one of several gangs collecting old books…dangerous, old books, with names like Necronomicon. Occasionally one of the bad guys utters a phrase beginning with “Pn’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh,” which is itself sufficient to let readers know that nothing less is at stake than the continued existence of humanity in the universe. And only Sam Hunter can ensure that. The longest in the volume, Maberry’s novella gives a master storyteller the scope to explore the complexities of tales-within-tales-within-tales, and he manages it effortlessly.

In the “Fourth Interlude: Down the Rabbit Hole,” Malone struggles with the fact that if the manuscripts he is discovering are true—and Limbus, Inc., actually exists—then he must make room in his understanding of the world for magical books and werewolves. And in the meantime, he heads to a small Eastern European town where he hopes to find out more about Jack Rabbit.

He does. And receives the manuscript for the most ambitious, and the most difficult, of the stories, Laird Barron’s “An Atlatl.” Beyond the superficial difficulty of rapidly repeating its title three times, Laird’s contribution takes the Limbus tales up a notch by adding a new dimension…literally. Readers have already learned that Limbus encompasses time and space, that it includes the ‘real’ and the mythical. Now Barron thrusts them into the intricacies of a story told simultaneously (as it were) within the multiverse, in an infinity of nearly identical earths with nearly identical characters moving through nearly identical narratives—emphasis on nearly.

The final segment, Talley’s “Epilogue: Call Us,” wraps up Malone’s tale as he finally unravels the mystery of the young woman’s death, takes private vengeance upon her killers (and in doing so ensures the end of his career with the police), and receives his own call from Limbus, Inc. After all, he is now unemployed. And they employ.

Individually, the stories are engaging, different enough as stand-alone tales to keep interest high, yet logically linked by Talley’s interludes. The volume is a worthy successor to the first two, and raises hopes for a fourth.

Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: This is a JournalStone book, however the views expressed belong solely to the reviewer.