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The House on the Borderland (Pocket Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
From the beasts of the pit to the endless terror of the void
A manuscript is found: filled with small, precise writing and smelling of pit-water, it tells the story of an old recluse and his strange home – and its even stranger, jade-green double, seen by the recluse on an otherworldly plain where gigantic gods and monsters roam.
Soon his more earthly home is no less terrible than this bizarre vision, as swine-like creatures boil from a cavern beneath the ground and besiege it. But a still greater horror will face the recluse – more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.
About the Author
William Hope Hodgson (1877 – 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction and science fiction.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I had this book on my "to get" list for a while, but it took this particularly well produced edition by Penguin to finally grab me and I'm glad it did, because it is an interesting and unusual story and for the most part, a cracking good read. The Penguin edition is well produced, printed on nice paper and properly typeset, not an OCR'd version of an earlier edition (though can someone tell me why, when the series has on overall yellow design, they are called "red Penguins?)
Like other reviewers I'm finding it hard to discuss "House" without spoilers. So the abbreviated review is this: scary, atmospheric and troubling, though perhaps a bit saggy in the third quarter. Worth getting.
Now for the spoilers - stop here if you want!
OK. The story is told by a nameless narrator, living in a remote house in Ireland with his elderly sister. Following a landslip that exposes strange caverns under the house, it is besieged by devilish human-pig creatures (though we don't really know that they are evil - and and our narrator did shoot first!). Between the assaults, the Narrator himself is plagued by out of body experiences. In the first of these he is taken to an alternate world where stands an analogue of the House. When the House is beset by the pig creatures, the analogue suffers the same assaults. The attack on the House is one of best and most convincing parts of the book, genuinely scary, and underlined by the way in which the sister, Mary, is seemingly unaware of the attack. Is the Narrator losing his reason? Are the creatures real? We are never sure.
In another extended episode, the Narrator witnesses the ageing of the Universe and the end of the world (as understood, perhaps, by late 19th century science). This is one of the less successful parts of the book. It goes on rather too long and there is too much purple prose. One can see the proto Lovecraft here, perhaps (HPL himself is quoted approvingly on the book's cover). But this section is still a tour de force of early science fiction, truly ambitious in its conception and worth sticking with. When it ends, things get nasty, very nasty, in short order.
I really enjoyed this book, although there is a little of The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (Oxford World's Classics) about it - too many diverse weird events (glowing green monsters, the out of body stuff, the pig-creatures, the end of the Universe, mysterious caverns and trapdoors). In the end there are no certain answers. We are left wondering what really happened, and why. That's OK by me - much spookier than a neat resolution - but a bit more of a unifying theme might have helped. But it is a good read and those pages really turn once it gets going! Probably best to enjoy in one sitting, by a log fire, with most of the lights out and a storm outside - but it worked for me on a Chiltern Railways commuter train in daylight, so the writing must be pretty good.
As a footnote, the Penguin edition gives a short biography of William Hope Hodgson who died in the Great War, in April 1918, at the age of 41. Only one death among many, I know, but very sad.
Like other reviewers I'm finding it hard to discuss "House" without spoilers. So the abbreviated review is this: scary, atmospheric and troubling, though perhaps a bit saggy in the third quarter. Worth getting.
Now for the spoilers - stop here if you want!
OK. The story is told by a nameless narrator, living in a remote house in Ireland with his elderly sister. Following a landslip that exposes strange caverns under the house, it is besieged by devilish human-pig creatures (though we don't really know that they are evil - and and our narrator did shoot first!). Between the assaults, the Narrator himself is plagued by out of body experiences. In the first of these he is taken to an alternate world where stands an analogue of the House. When the House is beset by the pig creatures, the analogue suffers the same assaults. The attack on the House is one of best and most convincing parts of the book, genuinely scary, and underlined by the way in which the sister, Mary, is seemingly unaware of the attack. Is the Narrator losing his reason? Are the creatures real? We are never sure.
In another extended episode, the Narrator witnesses the ageing of the Universe and the end of the world (as understood, perhaps, by late 19th century science). This is one of the less successful parts of the book. It goes on rather too long and there is too much purple prose. One can see the proto Lovecraft here, perhaps (HPL himself is quoted approvingly on the book's cover). But this section is still a tour de force of early science fiction, truly ambitious in its conception and worth sticking with. When it ends, things get nasty, very nasty, in short order.
I really enjoyed this book, although there is a little of The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (Oxford World's Classics) about it - too many diverse weird events (glowing green monsters, the out of body stuff, the pig-creatures, the end of the Universe, mysterious caverns and trapdoors). In the end there are no certain answers. We are left wondering what really happened, and why. That's OK by me - much spookier than a neat resolution - but a bit more of a unifying theme might have helped. But it is a good read and those pages really turn once it gets going! Probably best to enjoy in one sitting, by a log fire, with most of the lights out and a storm outside - but it worked for me on a Chiltern Railways commuter train in daylight, so the writing must be pretty good.
As a footnote, the Penguin edition gives a short biography of William Hope Hodgson who died in the Great War, in April 1918, at the age of 41. Only one death among many, I know, but very sad.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you like Lovecrafts more mindboggling and cosmic horror stories, like 'The Shadow Out of Time' or 'Mountains of Madness', you will probably appriciate 'The House on the Borderland' by William Hope Hodgson. Sure, Lovecraft liked Hodgsons writing and mentions him in his essay 'Supernatuiral Horror in Literature' along with Hodgsons other classic: 'The Night Land' (1912).
The story shouldn't be discussed too much in advance. Lets just say that most of it is in the form of a manuscript found in the ruins of a mysterious house. The manuscript is written by the former owner of the house. We learn that this is no ordinary house. Just like the blackout the professor got in Lovecrafts 'The Shadow out of Time' was no ordinary blackout. Far from it. Saying more will just spoil the reading experience.
On the Penguin pocket ('Red Classics' series) from 2008: I like the design, but I think as part of a series of horror literature it could have included a more detailed introduction of Hodgson.
Strongly recommended to anyone who likes Lovecraft, horror, fantasy or science fiction, or just the unusual and strange.
The story shouldn't be discussed too much in advance. Lets just say that most of it is in the form of a manuscript found in the ruins of a mysterious house. The manuscript is written by the former owner of the house. We learn that this is no ordinary house. Just like the blackout the professor got in Lovecrafts 'The Shadow out of Time' was no ordinary blackout. Far from it. Saying more will just spoil the reading experience.
On the Penguin pocket ('Red Classics' series) from 2008: I like the design, but I think as part of a series of horror literature it could have included a more detailed introduction of Hodgson.
Strongly recommended to anyone who likes Lovecraft, horror, fantasy or science fiction, or just the unusual and strange.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Willam Hope Hodgson was a remarkable character who was one of the fathers of the Weird Tales generation of the early 20th Century. His literary legacy is large and varied but The House On The Borderland is generally acknowledged as one of his finest works. It's certainly one of the strangest.
The book, for the most part, takes the form of a manuscript found in the ruins of an ancient house. The manuscript's author reveal the incidents leading up to the houses ruination. And so follows a book of two distinct part. In the first a fairly straight forward Gothic horror with strange swine faced monsters but this eventually mutates into the bizarre head trip through space as the narrator explains how he travelled through time and space, literally to the ends of the earth.
It's clear to see how this vision of cosmic horror amidst distant nebulae influenced the likes of H.P. Lovecraft but at the same time the roots of this book in the Gothic tradition are also clear. What we are reading here is nothing less than the evolution of the Horror novel.
The pace and tension in the first part of the book are remarkable given it's age. This is a book that reads well despite it passing it's 101st birthday recently. The second part is more difficult. It's remarkable in many ways for the sheer vision. It's like a cross between the Wizard of Oz and the ending of 2001 but it's perhaps just a bit too long.
All in all though this is a true classic not only was it a pioneering book at the time but it remains a valid and enjoyable read today. Despite all the gore which has immunised us over the years, all the repetitive plots and tropes, this book still manages to stand out as a visionary masterpiece.
The book, for the most part, takes the form of a manuscript found in the ruins of an ancient house. The manuscript's author reveal the incidents leading up to the houses ruination. And so follows a book of two distinct part. In the first a fairly straight forward Gothic horror with strange swine faced monsters but this eventually mutates into the bizarre head trip through space as the narrator explains how he travelled through time and space, literally to the ends of the earth.
It's clear to see how this vision of cosmic horror amidst distant nebulae influenced the likes of H.P. Lovecraft but at the same time the roots of this book in the Gothic tradition are also clear. What we are reading here is nothing less than the evolution of the Horror novel.
The pace and tension in the first part of the book are remarkable given it's age. This is a book that reads well despite it passing it's 101st birthday recently. The second part is more difficult. It's remarkable in many ways for the sheer vision. It's like a cross between the Wizard of Oz and the ending of 2001 but it's perhaps just a bit too long.
All in all though this is a true classic not only was it a pioneering book at the time but it remains a valid and enjoyable read today. Despite all the gore which has immunised us over the years, all the repetitive plots and tropes, this book still manages to stand out as a visionary masterpiece.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
House on the Borderland
Atmospheric at the very least, a nice easy read and a nostalgia tour for myself having read it once a decade ago, if anyone out there wants a book for the weekend/ holls and likes... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Shaw
House on the Borderland
An extraordinarily imaginative story, and one that was genuinely scary even to one approaching retirement.
Published on 21 Jan 2010 by Dr. H. O'neal
A classic tale of cosmic horror (with added swine-things ...)
This is a strong candidate for being the best of William Hope Hodgson's books. Before H. P. Lovecraft began his 'Cthulhu Mythos', Hope Hodgson offered up a very Lovecraftian... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2009 by Brian Flange
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