October 23: Up in the morning, out on the job. I hassled the Things, then checked around outside. A black feather lay near our front door. Could be one of Nightwind’s. Could be openers on a nasty spell. Could just be a stray feather. I carried it across the road to the field and pissed on it.
- Title: A Night in the Lonesome October
- Author: Roger Zelazny
- Genre: Horror/Fantasy
- Year: 1993
Roger Zelazny never ceases to amaze me. Ballsy and inventive in equal amounts, he’s the guy at the party who tells outrageous lies with a straight face, and builds elaborately upon them all evening until you believe him — not because he’s convinced you, no, but because he’s bullshitted with such seductive skill that you’re dying to be a part of his own version of the truth. If another writer has come along with his mix of headlong, impetuous storytelling, precise humor and lean prose, and staggering imagination than somebody please tell me, because a book like A Night in the Lonesome October reminds me just how much I miss this guy.
Simply told but never simplistic, Lonesome October is narrated by Snuff, a watchdog for one of the Players in a Game of metaphysical and multidimensional proportions. Soho, on the outskirts of London, sometime before the death of the nineteenth century, has drawn a disparate group for the playing of this age-old Game. Many of these Players are lifted straight from horror fiction of the past, or even history itself, and such figures as the Count, the Mad Monk, the Good Doctor, and the Great Detective are readily identifiable even though Zelazny never uses their proper names. Snuff’s master, Jack, is a Londoner who’s good with a knife and keeps late hours . . . like nearly all of the Players it’s immediately obvious just who he is, and such a collection of oddities and archetypes is handled cleverly and in a manner consistent with the reader’s expectations (fans of the ‘Great Detective,’ in particular, should really get a kick out of his facility with disguise here).
But the book isn’t about Jack, and whatever real horrors might be conjured up by such a character are kept at arm’s length by focusing on the Players’ familiars for much of the story. Zelazny’s quirky choice gives Lonesome October almost the feel of a beast fable, as Snuff spies on, thwarts, or assists the various animal familiars all out doing the same for their masters. Much of the action at the beginning of the book is a double mystery, for Snuff is concerned with identifying the other Players and trying to determine just what side they are on, and the reader is gradually given clues as to what exactly this Game of magic and maneuver is all about. This unfolding of information and wheeling and dealing among the animals is a great deal of fun, a bit like a combination of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with Watership Down and a Karloff-Lugosi double feature on late night cable.
The importance of the Game is revealed as Snuff works out the various Geometries that govern how and where it’s final act will be played out. On the way we are treated to black humor and black magic, such as one scene in a cemetery — in which many of the Players are busy robbing graves for spell components — that turns into a farcical swap-meet, or when Snuff gives advice about coping with hangovers to a snake that lives in the belly of the often-drunk Mad Monk. Things get a bit grimmer as Players start dying and friends find themselves on opposite sides, and it all builds deftly to a satisfying conclusion on October 31st — the night of a full moon.
Fans of Stoker, Shelley, Lovecraft, Conan Doyle, and classic horror will find a lot to grin about in Lonesome October. I suspect in the hands of a lesser author this book would have been an uneven mess, but Zelazny’s brisk confidence and light touch keep the story on course between the two extremes of ghastliness and lunacy in such a way that the reader believes every word and comes to care about the characters.
The edition I read was illustrated by Gahan Wilson, famed for his demented cartoons in SF circles (and beyond). His illustrations in Lonesome October, which is what I’d imagine newspaper comic strips in the underworld to look like, are a perfect accompaniment to the tone of the story and really enhance the tale.
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Cool review, I didn’t know Zelazny ever wrote such genre-benders. I take it that Snuff, the watchdog, is in fact an actual dog? File under anthropomorphic…
Thanks Nathan. Yes, he is, in all likelihood, an actual but extraordinary dog, though there is a little mystery about that. There is a bit of explanation about why and how some of the familiars were ‘uplifted’ from their normal cousins as well.
Hey, a nicely worded and thorough review, Bill. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit – and you almost wooed me. Such content is not my usual cup of tea, but you made it sound almost interesting enough to almost entice me. Anyone of lesser culture than I – well, they’ve simply no chance against you.
Almost, he says!
I’ll have something up here Friday that is definitely more your cup of tea, so be sure to check back.
Bill,
Great review. I have this book in my collection, and for me it has staying power. It’s one of those books I pick up to read again about once a year or so. I just love the twisting of the perspectives – Jack the Ripper as the good guy, as told from the eyes of a dog. Not your typical protagonist.
Thanks Thomas. I think that I too will be reading this again, it is, as you say, a really great twist on standard perspectives.
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