Need something to while away those chilly, lonesome nights in October? I've got the link for you. Check out Salome Strangelove's reading of Roger Zelazny's A Night In the Lonesome October. Here's a link to the introduction. The remaining 31 chapters (one for each day in October) follow as separate recordings. Strangelove's presentation and the story are quite addictive, so don't be surprised if you have trouble stopping once you start listening.
A Night In the Lonesome October is Zelazny's last novel and is now sadly out of print. Set in late Victorian England, the story tells of a "game," a competition between openers and closers, concerning a gate between this world and the realm of the Great Old Ones. The story draws heavily on Lovecraft's mythos as well as characters from Victorian gothic fiction. Jack the Ripper, Count Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes, among others, populate the tale. Each player in the game has a familiar. Snuff, the guard dog and familiar belonging to Jack the Ripper, tells the story.
The title comes from a line in the first stanza of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulalume."
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
A book I really have to read: it does sound fantastic. Such a shame it's out of print.
ReplyDeleteYes, terrible shame. I ordered a used copy last week. Should be here in a day or two.
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