The Night Land

William Hope Hodgson

Library - Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel Project Gutenberg Weird _bleiler _isfdb

Publisher: Eveleigh Nash

Published: Apr 2, 1912

Page Count: 435

Description:

1105. THE NIGHT LAND. Eveleigh Nash; London,
1912.
Adventure and romance in the far future. * A very
long novel told in a pseudo-archaic gibberish
that combines aspects of early eighteenth-century
English, Irish dialect, and the King James Bible.
The narrator is a future man who has complete memory
of a previous incarnation and romance in perhaps
eighteenth-century England. * It is millions of
years in the future, and the sun has long been extinguished.
The earth lies in darkness except for
fairly common volcanic outbursts and emanations of
the earth-current. All mankind (except as noted
below) lives in a single gigantic pyramid that is
seven miles high, and five and three quarters miles
wide on each side, with subterranean chambers extending
out a hundred miles. The pyramid is surrounded
by a ring of earth-current flame. * The reason
for this beleaguerment is that the earth, as a
whole, has become uninhabitable, not only from natural
causes, but because of a foul population that
fills the outer darkness. Such beings include all
sorts of vicious animal-human hybrids, humanoid
mutations, giants of great savagery, and a group of
awesome evil spiritual powers. These last are the
most to be feared, since they cause death not only
to the body, but to the soul as well. They include
great statue-like beings that progress toward the
pyramid inches each millennium, invisible powers
that try to lure men into supernatural buildings and
doorways to other evil dimensions; and incomprehensible
beings that occasionally march along ways forbidden
to mankind. All this came about from scientific
tinkering with forces beyond control, millions
of years earlier. * The young man who narrates the
story works in the Great Observatory of the Great
Redoubt; since he is telepathic after a fashion he
can observe much that others are unable to perceive.
Completely unexpectedly he receives a call from outside,
a call from another pyramid that was founded
so many hundreds of thousands of years earlier that
it has been almost forgotten. Its exact location is
no longer known. The young man communicates with a
young woman (Naani), who is his counterpart. * The
Lesser Redoubt, as the second pyramid is called, has
suffered greatly from fluctuations of the earth-current.
The current had long been too low for real
functioning; then it flowed up for a short time,
permitting communication between the two pyramids;
and now suddenly, it is waning, disastrously. * Naani
appeals frantically for help, for it seems as if
the Lesser Pyramid will go under. A small rescue
expedition that leaves the Great Redoubt meets with
disaster from the hostile forces outside. * At this
point the young man decides that he will make his
way to the Lesser Redoubt and rescue Naani, with
whom he has fallen in love, since both are reincarnations
of the eighteenth-century lovers. Even
though his telepathic gifts are unique in the pyramid,
he cannot be restrained, since such departure
is his legal right. Armed with a diskos (a portable
rotating blade powered by the earth-current) he ventures
alone into the darkness. Most of the novel is
concerned with his encounters with strange monsters
of a physical sort. After travelling for about a
month directed by an infallible internal compass, he
comes upon Naani, who is wandering in the wilderness.
The Lesser Redoubt has fallen, and its inhabitants
have almost all been slaughtered. * Together
the young man and Naani make their way back
to the Great Redoubt, through perils and trials, but
find the pyramid besieged by hordes of monstrosities
determined to prevent their rescue. The young man
breaks through, but Naani dies in the attempt. Taken
inside to be cremated by the earth-current (as
is the custom), however, she revives. * It is difficult
to think of another work in which an author has
bungled such excellent ideas with such an unfortunate
development. The ideas are brilliant, and some
of the concepts are staggering, but the novel is
about twice as long as it should be, with page after
page of padding; the absurd artificial language in
which the story is written destroys any mood that
might have arisen from the monumental concepts; and
the perpetual maunderings about an eighteenth-century
romance are beyond acceptance. * The novel was
written in 1906, but was not published until Hodgson's
other books demonstrated that his work was viable.
* An abridged version by Holden and Hardingham
(London, 1921) is not successful, for it simply removes
such imaginative virtues as the book contains.