[.ca] Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 4: The ... (ISBN 1892389428)

A flawed masterpiece:
The works of William Hope Hodgson are mostly forgotten, but have no doubt that he strongly influenced both Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, two literary names that put a heavy imprint on 20th c. horror literature. The Night Land is Hodgson's masterpiece, written in a deliberately archaic synthetic language without a single line of dialogue which presents to us a vision of such titanic eschatological force that it will burn itself into your mind for the rest of your life. Imagine that you've found your true love; your heart's desire; your soul-mate. Now imagine that you are thrust forward in time a hundred million years, to the end of the world, when the entire Earth is shrouded by unimaginable darkness. A world ruled by monsters and necromantic gods, where the last few millions of humanity shiver in their refuge, a pyramidal arcology at the tip of the world. Now imagine that your true love is there...but in another arcology, and you must travel the Night Land to save her. This is Hodgson's tribute to horror, and to love. For it should be strongly noted that this is a Romance, in a classic Victorian style, and not a horror or fantasy novel as such. And this is where the flaw lies, for Hodgson was a romantic and Victorian gentlemen, and his ideas may be intensely grating to modern readers. In fact, the romance is at times so saccharine and bloated that it may force you to put down the book. Nevertheless, persevere, because this is a novel that leaves an indelible mark, and its virtues, though considered hackneyed and misogynistic in modern times, still have a noble bearing that is worth appraising. If you liked this book but prefer more horror and less love-dovey, try The House on the Borderland, Hodgson's other great and spooky novella.