A classic novel that bridges the gap between late 19th century British works in the supernatural or fantastic vein, and modern horror fiction. Listed as one of H.P. Lovecraft's favorite works.
Before I started reading "The House on the Borderland", I knew it was supposed to be original and a bit out-there, even by Hodgson's standards. It is that, and so much more. What starts out very much like a Victorian ghost story soons morphs into a nightmare of weird terror and a mind-bending astral adventure. Our protagonists, naively expecting a quiet fishing trip, instead stumble across a manuscript and find themselves plunged into an account of the most bizarre kind. First, we learn of the horrifying Swine-things that live in the pit under the house, and shortly after, we're floating off through time and space. The detailed way in which Hodgson describes time speeding up and the course of the planets and stars changing makes you think he'd really experienced it. Never has the passing of aeons in the blink of an eye been so wonderfully and terrifyingly laid out in prose. We have questions all the way along, and we know they won't be answered at the end...and that's what makes this mysterious work of fiction so intriguing.
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23 December, 2022:
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23 December, 2022:
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