My Name Isn't Paul is a cosmic horror novella written by Drew Huff. An excellent story built around interesting spatial creatures that, as a collective, can adopt human forms (forming a colony), with a biological cycle that drives towards destruction, intimately tied with reproduction, in a plot that not only shows Huff ability to write gorey, but also explores the identity vs collective dilemma.

We will be following one of these creatures (I will use creature as a synonym for colony), Paul, in their metaphorical journey that will take them through craziness and the final mania episode that tends to accompany their ending; from the meeting with those that could be considered their siblings, and how that puts in the spotlight the weirdness of how Paul tie their identity to the human form they acquired, including a reminder of how their time is running out.

We could say that this story is divided into two differentiated parts: a first one, in which Paul are struggling with their nature, running away from those that are like them; in the second, we become spectators of the final bloodfest episode associated to the moments that precede their inevitable ending, and how in this state, they need to be stop by others like them.

This novella is really fast-paced, but still has enough space to show hints of a quite interesting worldbuilding, especially with this notion of individuals that are formed by colonies (like bacteria formations) and how they are part of human society. Huff shows her talent to write intense scenes, not only on the violent side, but also on the dilemma experience by our main character.

An excellent novella that is a good taste of the talent in Huff's writing, perfect if you are looking for a different piece that you can read in one seat, and that is not shy of going to the extreme.