A Night in the Lonesome October
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First edition (hardcover)
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| Author | Roger Zelazny |
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| Illustrator | Gahan Wilson |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company |
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Publication date
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1993 |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 27640649 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3576.E43 N5 1993 |
A Night in the Lonesome October is a fantastic 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.
The book is divided in 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. A similar theme of conflict surrounding the opening of a gate to another world exists in Zelazny's novel Madwand.
A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the point-of-view of Snuff, a dog who is Jack the Ripper's companion. The bulk of the story takes place in London and its environs, though at one point the story detours through the dream-world described by Lovecraft in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. 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 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. When these conditions are right, men and women with occult knowledge may gather at a specific ritual site to hold the doors closed, or to help fling them open. Should the Closers win, then the world will remain as it is until the next turning... but should the Openers succeed, then the Great Old Ones will come to Earth, to remake the world in their own image (enslaving or slaughtering the human race in the process). The Openers have never yet won. These meetings are often referred to as "The Game" or "The Great Game" by the participants, who try to keep the goings-on secret from the mundane population.
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