night in the lonesome october richard laymon

The story reveals that once every few decades when the moon is full on the night of Halloween, the fabric of reality thins and doors may be opened between this world and the realm of the Great Old Ones. Though never explicitly stated, various contextual clues within the story (the most obvious of which being the appearance of Sherlock Holmes or 'The Great Detective') imply that it takes place during the late Victorian period.

The bulk of the story takes place in London and its environments, though at one point the story detours through the dream-world described by Lovecraft in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. A similar theme of conflict surrounding the opening of a gate to another world exists in Zelazny's 1981 novel Madwand.Ī Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the point-of-view of Snuff, a dog who is Jack the Ripper's companion. The title is a line from Edgar Allan Poe's ' Ulalume' and Zelazny thanks him as well as others – Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Bloch and Albert Payson Terhune – whose most famous characters appear in the book.Ī Night in the Lonesome October was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1994. Throughout, 33 full-page illustrations by Gahan Wilson (one per chapter, plus one on the inside back cover) punctuate a tale heavily influenced by H.

The story is told in the first-person, akin to journal entries. The book is divided into 32 chapters, each representing one 'night' in the month of October (plus one 'introductory' chapter). It was his last book, and one of his five personal favorites. A Night in the Lonesome October is a novel by American writer Roger Zelazny published in 1993, near the end of his life.

Night in the lonesome october richard laymon