Cthulhu knows what was in the water back at the turn of last century, but those Eldritch horror writers sure drank a lot of it. There’s something oddly charming about their wildly fertile imaginations, even if their obsession with large tentacled creatures from some Hellish dimension make me giggle more than poop my pants. Now, I’m not a huge Lovecraft fan - I like my horror Annie Wilkes style - so I came to this book with only a passing curiosity. But given it kicks off with the whole found manuscript schtick, I was willing to go along for the ride.
Two men on a fishing trip in Ireland find a journal tucked into some ruins at the edge of a large abyss. Written by a strange loner, it recounts his time in a house tending to his sister. Weird stuff begins to happen. Strange lights filter through windows. A parallel dimension opens up in the form of a vast plain, into which the loner ventures. All the Eldritch trappings are here - beasts, hostile lands, sentient vengeful vegetation. And an all-consuming, ferocious swine monster. Honestly, it’s bloody hilarious, albeit unintentionally, and an absolute hoot to read. Do it!
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Penguin, 2024 (1908)
190 pages