The Night Land, Awake and Otherwise

Ever since reading the Golden Age trilogy several years ago, I've been a fan of John C. Wright's work. Insofar as he keeps his sometimes repellent politics out of it, his writing is visionary, unique, and compelling. The worlds he imagines can be stunningly deep and nuanced; what he lacks in character development, he more than makes up with idea development, and that's no easy compliment for an old literature major to make.

Sketches for the final cover

When I approached his latest, Awake in the Night Land, I hoped for good things and was not disappointed. This series of four linked novellas set in the dark, far-future world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 The Night Land is dark, yes, very dark-- Hodgson was one of H.P. Lovecraft's main influences-- but not at all despairing. As reviewer Jonathan Moeller states,

 In the world of the book, the sinister powers of the Night Land, led by the terrifying and enigmatic Silent Ones, rule the Earth, and indeed the entirety of the universe. Only the Last Redoubt stands free, and its inhabitants know it will inevitably fall and be consumed by the eternal darkness.And yet…If that was all there was to the book, I would not have finished it and would not be writing about it now.

Indeed. This old literature major is also sick of despair, ennui, and existential bleakness in writing, but it's tough to pull off hope and life affirmation without degenerating into nauseating sentimentality.

Hodgson's original does it, though, and Wright's tribute does it even better.

I recommend reading the original first, but please, for sanity's sake, read James Stoddard's excellent modernization instead of the original Hodgson, at least on the first pass. The original has some awesome illustrations but the style is unpleasantly like Lovecraft on drugs. The retelling is still one of the most beautiful love stories ever told.

"The Redoubt" by Les Edwards

For more Night Land mythos, here are two websites dedicated specifically to them.


The first, William Hope Hodgson by Sam Gafford, makes for some wonderful browsing. With Phillip Ellis, Gafford is working on a collection of Hodgson's poetry set to release in November of 2014.

The Northwest Watcher by Stephen Fabian

The second, The Night Land, is an eclectic multimedia site in the grand old net tradition. I love it. It was originally created by Andy Robertson, who passed away in April of this year.  Robertson was the first to publish John C. Wright's short stories based on the Night Lands mythos; here is a post from Wright's website about Robertson and his reviews. Now Robertson's colleague Brett Davidson has taken over the site.