The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson (best new books to read .txt) π
Description
The Night Land is science fiction ahead of its time. Published in 1912, the book introduces a 17th-century gentleman who loses his wife. He soon discovers himself somehow reanimated in Earthβs far future, millions of years from now, when the sun has died and the Earth has become a hellish waste. What remains of humanity lives in titanic mile-high pyramids surrounded by energy shields to protect them from the abhuman monsters lurking in the darkness.
The human survivors soon receive a distress signal sent by a long-forgotten lesser pyramid, and the narrator embarks on a bloody quest to rescue the maiden of the pyramidβwhich he knows to be his lost love, somehow transcending time and space. On his journey the narrator is beset by countless horrifying monsters, many of them mutated former-humans. These depictions are so singular that H. P. Lovecraft called The Night Land βone of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written.β
The novel is unique in its farsighted depiction of technology. The narrator has telepathic powers and is able to communicate with others over long distances. These powers are enabled by his βbrain elements,β which are possibly surgically-implanted. Telepathic communications may be spied upon by the monsters of the waste, but a βmaster wordβ sent by the caller may verify the integrity of the signalβa description of a kind of early public-key cryptography.
The narrator survives on food pellets and βpowdered water,β predicting a kind of astronaut food. His weapon of choice is a Diskos, a kind of whirling razor-sharp blade that shoots fire and energy. The machines and force fields of the human pyramid monument are powered by βEarth current,β which the narrator worries is slowly becoming dimmer over the years. The pyramid itself is a jewel of imagination: described as miles wide and miles high, each layer is its own city, and it continues deep underground where artificial grow chambers provide food for millions of humans.
Though the novel maintains a sort of legendary status for its grim and imaginative depiction of a monstrous future world, critics acknowledge the work as a flawed masterpiece. The narrative is written in a highly affected style, perhaps meant to emulate 17th century speech, or perhaps meant to be a stylized form of speech used by far-future humans. In any case, it resembles no real style of English, past or present. While some critics praise this style as uniquely atmospheric, others point to it, along with the lack of dialog or proper names, as some of the bookβs more difficult aspects. Critics also frequently cite the bookβs highly repetitious nature, simplistic characterization, and inordinate lengthβnearly 200,000 wordsβas major flaws. But despite whatever flaws the novel may have, the awesome vision of The Night Land remains a marvel to behold.
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- Author: William Hope Hodgson
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And surely, Mine Own did be alway now to ask me when that we should be come unto the Night Land; and to require how far it should be, and to be taken with a growing of excitement, very dear and natural; and, in verity, I to be almost so much so as she; and to wonder what she to think of the Mighty Redoubt, and of all that strange and monstrous Land. And, above all these, I to be shaken unto my very heart, that I have the Maid speedy unto safety; lest, after all, even though we to have come so far, there somewhat to happen of woe. And all this did make it a hard thing that we not to begin to race, and to exceed the hours that we did set; but truly we had wisdom in this matter, and slumbered alway after the sixteenth hour.
And we never to see aught of life in all that great and desolate Gorge; for there did be only the gas-burnings, and the boulders and the stark rocks, and oft the rank smellings of the gases. And alway an utter and everlasting quiet; save when some lonesome gas-fire did oddly to moan or to whistle, and the whistling to sound very dree across the great waste of the Gorge, and likewise the moaning to be but a thing to make the loneliness to be felt in the heart; and the Maid to feel thus with me.
And alway, as I did know, she to think in her heart that I did come through that place alone to make a searching for her into the unknown lands of the world; and surely, I did be but a natural man if that I was something happy in my heart that Mine Own so to ponder and to remember; for thereby did her love seem ever to grow. And likewise, a man doth be glad in his spirit and natural pride, that his Maid to know that he hath done wholesomely of his best for her need. And you but to think upon the love-days, and to hear the echoes of those dear proud thoughts that did so to swell in you; and doth not all to go so strangely with familiar pain in the old way?
Now it was upon the fifth day, in about the seventh hour, that I heard oddwhiles a sound in this place and that of the Gorge, as that the rocks made husht and strange sounds at us. And I to have the Maid instant very nigh to me, and the Diskos to my hand, and we then to go onward with a great caution.
And thrice we did pass places where gas-fires did burn and dance, and made oft a low moaning, and somewhiles a little whistling; and the other sounds yet to come oddly from the rocks, in this place and that, very strange and unthought of, yet to be something familiar.
And sudden, it did come to me that there to be a far-away noise in these sounds; though they to seem to come from this place and that almost to mine elbow, as you should say. And lo! I knew then that I harked unto little echoings, that did be caught by the near rocks, and to come from some far and mighty sound. And this should be surely the monstrous piping of the Great Gas Fountain, that you do well mind. And, in verity, I told Mine Own in a moment; and she to be all eager with me, because that this did be both a wondrous thing, and to be also a landmark to show that we did be nigh to come out of the Gorge, and our journey to come the more near unto an ending.
And surely we lookt ahead very earnest; and there to be so many strange and leaping fires to our front, that we not to be very sure which did be the far and monstrous dance of the Great Gas Fountain; for truly it to be yet so distant that the near gas-fires did make more upon the eye up all of a weary length of the Gorge, than did the great dance of the far-off fire, that was now so small, by the distance.
And presently, when that we were gone onward something more, we to see that there went a lightening and a darkening afar along the Gorge, so that the background of the night was made to lose somewhat of the intensity of its darkness, as with constant shudders of light; and this to be surely the far away dance of the flame of the Great Gas Fountain. And we then to watch alway as we journeyed, and to see how that the vague shudderings of light did grow in the distance of the night, and did merge and become known presently in a strange uplifting and falling of a far away blue flame.
And the sound now to come more steady, and to grow in a long while into a monstrous piping, very great and wonderful, and having a constant change in the note.
And we to come past the last of the lesser fires, and to be in that part of the Gorge which did be fireless, save for the great upward dance of the Gas Fountain, which did now to be grown huge and plain-seen, and did make a quaking light over all the Gorge.
And so in the end, we to be come very nigh to the dance of the monstrous flame; and did
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