For the past couple years, I try to make sure to share some mini-reviews of the horror I've been reading in October, so today I'm excited to share two older horror classics: The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson and I Am Legend by Richard Matheson! I've been trying to throw in some horror classics amidst the other reads I've been working my way through in October, and I figured I couldn't go wrong with these two authors. I am planning to read more stories from William Hope Hodgson, as he has many novellas and short stories, but I figured I'd just discuss The House on the Borderland today, and same goes for Richard Matheson with I Am Legend, so let's dive in! (And just as a head's up, I'm planning to post a review for Subcutanean by Aaron A. Reed sometime this week or next, along with hopefully Public Access Afterworld--assuming I can finish it in time, it's a big book!--and maybe a couple others, so stay tuned for those!)
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places by William Hope Hodgson
Night Shade Books (originally published by Chapman and Hall)
Publication: 1908 (original publication year)
Publication: 1908 (original publication year)
Hardcover. 136 pages.
About The House on the Borderland:
"William Hope Hodgson was, like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, one of the most important, prolific, and influential fantasists of the early twentieth century. His dark and unsettling short stories and novels were shaped in large part by personal experience and his work evokes a disturbing sense of the amorphous and horrific unknown.
While his adventure fiction was very popular during his lifetime, the supernatural and cosmic horror he is most remembered for only became well known after his death, mainly due to the efforts of writers like H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, who often praised his work and cited it as an influence on their own. By the latter half of the twentieth century, it was only his weird fiction that remained in print, and his vast catalog of non-supernatural stories was extremely hard to find.
A chilling masterpiece of cosmic horror, The House on the Borderland blends eerie isolation, time-warping visions, and supernatural terror in one of the earliest examples of weird fiction. When two men discover a ruined manuscript near a desolate Irish ruin, they uncover a tale of a recluse who battles unknowable forces beyond space and time. Revered by H.P. Lovecraft, this haunting novel remains a cornerstone of early 20th-century speculative fiction."
While his adventure fiction was very popular during his lifetime, the supernatural and cosmic horror he is most remembered for only became well known after his death, mainly due to the efforts of writers like H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, who often praised his work and cited it as an influence on their own. By the latter half of the twentieth century, it was only his weird fiction that remained in print, and his vast catalog of non-supernatural stories was extremely hard to find.
A chilling masterpiece of cosmic horror, The House on the Borderland blends eerie isolation, time-warping visions, and supernatural terror in one of the earliest examples of weird fiction. When two men discover a ruined manuscript near a desolate Irish ruin, they uncover a tale of a recluse who battles unknowable forces beyond space and time. Revered by H.P. Lovecraft, this haunting novel remains a cornerstone of early 20th-century speculative fiction."
**Just a quick note/reminder that I am only reviewing The House on the Borderland for this review--I'll hopefully share my thoughts on other some of Hodgson's other work in the future!
The House on the Borderland feels like cosmic horror at its finest, and should probably be a must-read for any cosmic horror enthusiast. I've been sitting here at my computer struggling to figure out just how to write this review, as this is both a straightforward sort of story, yet also not straightforward at all and I'm not entirely sure where to start. Essentially, we have a man living in a secluded house with his dog, Pepper, and his sister, Mary (to my shame, I must admit that I remembered the dog's name off the top my head, but had to look up the sister's name to remember--what can I say, my interests are clear, I guess).
There are some rather terrifying encounters with some "swine-things" that appear around his house, which made me think that those alone would probably prompt me to pack up and move somewhere else, but alas, not our protagonist. I did feel a strong creeping sense of something distinctly not right throughout this story, especially with how his sister acted after an encounter with the swine-things that I thought excellently conveyed a weirdness that's hard to describe. In addition to these are the more cosmic, inter-dimensionality-type scenes and encounters that take our protagonist on quite a horrific, awe-inducing journey that I can't all begin to summarize. I'll admit that I felt a bit lost in these at times, possibly even moreso than our protagonist, but I did very much appreciate the sheer weirdness and imaginative aspects of them. I've seen a few articles describe these times as even "psychedelic," and I think that's actually a very apt descriptor.
I think what impressed me most was how Hodgson managed to capture a true sense of almost otherworldy horror throughout the story, a horror that is at times more classically heart-pounding, and at other times an almost calm, higher-level horror that is on such a grand scale it's hard to fathom--and somehow he manages to move between these different tones in a way that fits the story excellently and tells an excellent tale. I am very excited to read more of Hodgson's work, and although I believe they vary quite a bit, I really enjoyed his writing style and how immensely readable and even relatable it felt. If you've read anything from William Hope Hodgson that you particularly liked, please feel free to recommend it so I can prioritize it (horror or not!).
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Orb Books (originally published by Gold Medal Books)
Publication: August 7th, 1954
Publication: August 7th, 1954
Paperback. 162 pages.
About I Am Legend:
"Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood.
By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.
How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?"
I have never seen the movie I Am Legend because I have heard about an infamous dog scene that I prefer to avoid and I also assumed it was about zombies, which I have no interest in whatsoever, really, (and apparently I may be wrong about that? It hardly matters, though, I still don't plan to watch it). Regardless of what's in the movie, the book I Am Legend is about vampires, which I'm also not the biggest fan of, but I actually quite enjoyed this one. The only other Matheson book I've read thus far is Hell House, which was fine, but I think I Am Legend is a slightly better read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit more.
I didn't know much about this story or what to expect at all, so being immediately thrown into this world where Robert Neville, our protagonist, is seemingly one of the only survivors of a pandemic that has turned many other people into vampires, was quite an intense way to jump into this one. His struggle for survival in what are quite horrifying and truly demoralizing conditions was depicted in such a raw manner that really made me feel the hopelessness that he was constantly fighting against. While the threat of the vampires is very real, I found Robert's own situation and inner monologue to be just as horrific as the monsters themselves, which made for a surprisingly (and unexpectedly) harrowing read.
I really appreciated Matheson's more scientific approach to them and how we saw our protagonist really studying them and attempting to understand how they came to be or what were the things within them that prompted them to become what they were. I thought it was very well done and thought-provoking and really made it a much more compelling story than I expected. I liked getting to learn more about how things started out before the transformations occurred, as well as seeing how things evolved and seem to be continuing to evolve in different ways. My favorite thing, however, was probably the ending. To my knowledge, it is different from the movie, and I think it is excellent. To me, it truly is what makes this a classic and gives it such a lasting, thought-provoking presence in the horror genre.
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Final thoughts:
Neither The House on the Borderland or I Am Legend are becoming new favorites for me, but I very much enjoyed y time reading them and would absolutely recommend them to any horror fans or simply anyone looking to pick up some solid, shorter reads for the Halloween/fall season. They are well worth the read!
***Content warning for dog deaths in both of these. Both are fairly quick and not very graphic, but still. I'm not sure why I am somehow managing to pick up all the books with dog deaths lately, but I'm pretty tired of it. I just want dogs to be happy and alive--I really don't think that's too much to ask, is it?
Buy The House on the Borderland: Bookshop.org | Amazon
Buy I Am Legend: Bookshop.org | Amazon
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