A Night in the Lonesome October
LC Class | PS3576.E43 N5 1993 |
A Night in the Lonesome October is a novel by American writer Roger Zelazny published in 1993, near the end of his life. It was his last book, and one of his five personal favorites.[1]
The book is divided into 32 chapters, each representing one "night" in the month of October (plus one "introductory" chapter). The story is told in the first-person, akin to journal entries. 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. P. Lovecraft. 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.
A Night in the Lonesome October was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1994.[2] A similar theme of conflict surrounding the opening of a gate to another world exists in Zelazny's 1981 novel Madwand.
Plot summary
A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the
The story reveals that once every few decades when the moon is full on the night of Halloween (a very rare "Blue Moon" meaning, the second full moon in that month), the fabric of reality thins, and doors may be opened between this world and the realm of the
The various "Players" during the Game depicted in the book are archetypal characters from the Victorian Era
Each Player has a
Throughout the book, the Players slowly take sides, form alliances, make deals, oppose one another, and even kill off their enemies. The plot accelerates until the night of October 31, when the rite takes place and the fate of the world is decided.
References
- ^ "Archived copy". zelazny.corrupt.net. Archived from the original on 16 February 2008. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "1994 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
- ^ Kovacs, Christopher S. (17 October 2012). "Fallen books and other subtle clues in Zelazny's "A night in the lonesome October"".
External links
- A Night in the Lonesome October at Worlds Without End