The Chihuahua Centipede by Nicholas Gray

Everyone needs some killer giant centipede science fiction horror in their life.

Eight years after a horrific car accident that changed his life, Cade lives a simple existence working at a deep drill oil mine.

The day starts out as normal, driving to work with his best friend, Ricardo, but becomes increasingly frightening as an attempt to fix the drill leads to the discovery of killer giant centipedes, and a vessel buried deep within the earth.

This is a fast paced novelette with some great ideas. Cade has some character development with his backstory, and I enjoyed his repartee with Ricardo.

Not much time is given to the description of the mine or how they overcome the difficulties of traveling so deep within the earth. Having recently read Earthcore, by Scott Sigler, which has a similar plot, I know that the temperatures so far below the surface are enough to cook people alive and scald the air in their lungs.

However, Gray doesn’t worry about that stuff and jumps straight to the fun part. Killer centipedes and the people who made them.

My favorite part of the story is definitely the second half, when the action is thick and fast, and new revelations crop up about what lies so far beneath the earth’s crust. With such an interesting story, I wish the author had taken more time to develop it.

I award The Chihuahua Centipede…