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The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Luke-XVX
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Another new pickup!

Bookwomble 😍 One of my favourite books - I have it in three editions already, so I've already told myself I don't need a fourth! Gotta stay strong 💪😒📖 4w
Luke-XVX @Bookwomble ashamed to say I‘ve never read it! I believe it‘s part of Appendix N so I figured with this new edition I should rectify that! I picked up The King In Yellow in this new series edition yesterday too 4w
Bookwomble @Luke-XVX The King in Yellow is also marvellous: a different feel to Hodgson, and probably a bit more literary, but I love them both. The 5 books in the Penguin Weird Fiction series have great covers, but Claimed! by Bennett is the only one I'd need for my library, and I'll add it at some point. The anthology edition, Weird Fiction, weirdly has few stories in it I'd class as belonging to the Weird genre, though they're good horror/ghost stories. 4w
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Luke-XVX I already have a HC of Algernon Blackwood stories I picked up last year so I‘ll get into that before I commit to the whole set. Those covers though…! 4w
Luke-XVX I‘d be interested in doing a deep delve into these titles- I can imagine there‘s some great pulpy covers @Bookwomble 4w
Bookwomble I realised I was writing you an essay! Suffice to say, there are some fantastic examples of artwork on past editions of these books 😊 4w
Bookwomble PS. In case you're not familiar with it, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a great resource which holds images of cover art for most editions falling inside the genre 😊 Link, and I'll stop now! 😄 https://www.isfdb.org/ 4w
Luke-XVX @Bookwomble haha it‘s all good. I‘ll definitely check that out. Thank you. There‘s a few podcasts I listen to that will probably have referenced these books so I won‘t feel too out of my depth haha 4w
25 likes8 comments
review
Lukerey-Doo
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Pickpick

After finding weird fiction through authors like HP Lovecraft, I became interested in forerunners to the genre. Well, my first sampling of earlier authors was in William Hope Hodgson with his best known work, The House on the Borderland. Not sure of other's experience completely but I was really drawn in by the dark, surreal, dream like visuals more than dramatic narrative. But that satisfied me enough. Next by this author will be The Night Land.

Bookwomble This is one of my favourite books 😊 If you liked Borderland, you'll find The Night Land a trip! 2y
Lukerey-Doo @Bookwomble I did actually start reading it a while back before life got in the way. It won't be long until I pick it up again 😃 2y
Bookwomble @Lukey-Looloo Is a bit of a doorstop, isn't it? ,😊 2y
14 likes3 comments
review
Bookwomble
House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Pickpick

I loved this more the second time of reading than I remember having done the first time. It's an amazing achievement, I think, to have encompassed the heat-death of the universe billions of years in the future in a slim book written in 1908. That it's not unremittingly bleak seems to be Lovecraft's only criticism of this forerunner of his own conception of Cosmic Horror, though the hope it offers is a tenuous one.

Bookwomble Whether the found manuscript is the record of an extraordinary voyage being space, time and mortality or an account of the MC's descent into psychosis is something to "be uncovered, personally, by each reader, according to ability and desire". 2y
BarbaraBB Another like 😉 2y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB 😁👍🏻 2y
20 likes1 stack add3 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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I'd forgotten that the found manuscript relating the Recluse's experiences begins with one of his astral journeys rather than with the Earthbound horrors. It seems to be Hodgson's lengthy descriptions of these otherworldly landscapes that some find heavy going, and which I find myself lost in. They're like the Stargate section of Kubrick's 2001, a dizzying kaleidoscope of images designed to create an impression rather than advance a narrative.

Bookwomble This first astral trip delivers the traveller to a land illumined by a sun in eternal eclipse, ringed by vast mountains overshadowed by Titanic bestial gods, at the centre of which is a distorted representation of the traveller's home, and his first perception of the malevolent beings attempting to infiltrate it. I find it incredibly vivid. 2y
Bookwomble @barbarabb Thank you for 'liking' this post. I know you didn't care for this book, which is still ok by me 🙂 2y
BarbaraBB Haha, you remembered! But it must have been my state of mind; when reading your review it feels like a completely different one from the one I read! 2y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB These things strike us differently, don't they? 😊 2y
21 likes4 comments
quote
Bookwomble
House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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"The inner story must be uncovered, personally, by each reader, according to ability and desire.”

batsy That's a great quote ... And the description of this book makes it sound super interesting. 2y
Bookwomble @batsy Hodgson used swine monsters in a few stories 🐽 - I'm assuming he had a traumatic experience with a pig when he was a child! To go from the initial claustrophobic Old Dark House setting to Wellsian time traveller setting is quite an imaginative leap. 2y
23 likes2 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Decided to go for a comfort read. I've read the corn cob USA edition (atmospheric image, but unrepresentative of the Irish setting), and have decided to go for the silver and purple 1969 UK edition.
Hodgson is one of those love-or-hate authors. I love him despite his manifest flaws, and this book has a nostalgic place in my heart as I was reading it when my wife and I first started courting. She gave me glandular fever, an omen I ignored! 😄

batsy These covers are pretty great. For some reason I'm drawn to that menacing looking corn 🌽 2y
Bookwomble @batsy Yes, it's eye-catching, isn't it 😳 2y
The_Book_Ninja A glorious trio of books there 2y
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Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Yeah, I love them 😊 There a couple of other editions I'd like to find, one with a cover by Ian Miller and another with a cover by Terry Oakes. I could probably find them on t'internet, but coming across then in a second-hand bookshop at some point will be more joyous. 2y
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble I wish you Godspeed and good luck with your quest 🗡 2y
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja 😊👍🏻 2y
22 likes6 comments
review
Morr_Books
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Mehso-so

Finished the tagged book for book club. I liked it at first. It felt like a mix of Lovecraft and House of Leaves, but then it just turned too weird, and I stopped caring. At least it counts as a #TeamTheme for #TeamHendrix.
#Bingo #Scarathlon2021 @StayCurious
#spookoween @TheSpineView
#screamathon @4thhouseontheleft
#LittenListen @aperfectmjk
#OutstandingOctober @Andrew65

TheSpineView Way to go! 3y
Andrew65 Well done 👏👏👏 3y
47 likes2 comments
review
RainyDayReading
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Bailedbailed

For being a short book it is dragging so much. 70 pages in and I have no interest nor do I have any desire to keep going with it. This book is just not for me. First DNF of the year and it is my #doublespin 🙈🤣 At least that‘s one less on my TBR right? @TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks Yes, always good to get a book off the list, even if it's just realizing that it isn't a book for you!! 4y
BarbaraBB I read this one last year and didn‘t like it at all either 4y
RainyDayReading @TheAromaofBooks I can see how some people would like it, especially those into weird fiction. But this was just a little too weird for me. 4y
RainyDayReading @BarbaraBB Glad I‘m not the only one! It just is a bit too strange for me. 4y
41 likes4 comments
review
antivancrowe
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
Mehso-so

I don't have a lot of opinions on this work other than I enjoyed pieces of it and not the whole thing. I enjoyed the parts where Hermit dude was with Pepper and I enjoyed him defending the pigs. I felt like a lot of the book may have just been going over my head as it was boring. I'm not a big fan of his writing style, but if you like that old victorian style you'll like this.

review
Mistermandolin
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Pickpick

Not the best cover but the one that adorned the first edition of this classic that I owned - picked up at a playground jumble sale in 1973. A fantastic tale - although everything gets a tad overdone in the last quarter when Hodgson kicks back and really lets the ol‘ psyche rip. I love these journal discovery horror things.

Bookwomble I love this book, and Hodgson's work generally. "Overdone" is a Hodgson style, I think ? 4y
Mistermandolin @Bookwomble You are so right! 4y
23 likes2 comments
review
AshleyHoss820
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Pickpick

I struggled with rating this one. Given that this changed the game for gothic fiction by elevating it to cosmic horror and that it inspired the master, Lovecraft, I give it a pick. I can imagine how this blew minds in the early 1900s. Swine-things, space travel, time travel all the way to the end of existence as we know it? This is ground-breaking stuff and he deserves a nod. 183/1,001 #1001Books

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AshleyHoss820
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Boy, if this ain‘t a mood...
#1001Books

Mistermandolin Hodgson is terrific. Read him since I was a boy and picked up ‘Borderland‘ at a school jumble sale. His best by a mile. 4y
AshleyHoss820 @Mistermandolin So far, I‘m really enjoying this one! I‘ve owned this for a while (part of my 1,001 List mission) and I‘ve been randomly picking books off the shelf to read this summer. 😊 4y
Mistermandolin @AshleyHoss820 Glad you‘re enjoying it! Be careful with his other stuff, though. It can be hit and miss. The boat stuff can be a bit florid and overdone and even Hodgson devotees struggle with The Night Land. There‘s fine stuff to be had though - even if none of it reaches the imaginative heights of the classic you‘re currently reading. I‘m a writer myself and know how hard it can be. I‘m at www.markfox.co.uk if you‘re curious... 4y
AshleyHoss820 @Mistermandolin Thank you for that info! That is really good to know! I‘ll check out your page when I get a spare minute! 😊 4y
38 likes4 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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My three editions of Hodgson's cosmic horror classic each evoke different elements of the story with their cover art. From oldest and from the left, this American edition emphasises the isolation of the setting (though not its Irish location!), the middle one the horrors inhabiting the house, and the eldritch nature of the house itself, and finally, the vast reaches of time and space into and through which the protagonist is plunged.

SpaceCowboyBooks The Nightland is also amazing. 5y
Bookwomble @SpaceCowboyBooks Agreed 😊 I think it's Hodgson at his densest and most affected, or idiomatic, perhaps. Incredibly atmospheric. I do wonder what he would have gone on to write if he hadn't been another literary fatality of WWI. 5y
BarbaraBB You even have three copies! My review must have offended you. If so I am sorry, it is my ignorance on the author! 💕 5y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB Not at all, Barbara 😄 It would be a dull world if we all liked the same things. I was amused by the contrast in our views, and I don't hold myself to be right and you wrong 🙂 I didn't think Hodgson was ever going to bother the Nobel Literature committee, but I like him in his chosen arena. 5y
27 likes4 comments
review
BarbaraBB
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Panpan

A book I should read before I die? Not at all. It may have had significance for literature development in the early 20th century but it has totally lost its relevance for today‘s readers. So as long as you‘re not interested in literature history, don‘t bother reading this ridiculous gothic book with its hallucinatory plot and swine-things 😱.

#1001books #classicschallenge2020 #serialreader

TrishB I definitely won‘t be reading! 5y
LittleBug Swine-things??? That almost gets me curious🤪 5y
Megabooks Yikes!! Not going on my TBR!! 😝 5y
See All 19 Comments
Bookwomble I love this book 😁📖💖 5y
LeahBergen Swine things! 😂 5y
BarbaraBB @LittleBug I shouldn‘t have mentioned it 😀 5y
BarbaraBB @Bookwomble Really? I am curious what I have missed but I am not a big horror/supernatural/SF fan anyway... 5y
LittleBug No worries, I‘m not a big fan of gothic and your review was clear enough about this one, in case I wanted to try something anyway😉 5y
Reviewsbylola That‘s a hard pass from me. 😂 5y
SpaceCowboyBooks I thought is was quite good and a huge influence on writers like Lovecraft, however his dense late romantic style isn't for everyone. 5y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB I think @SpaceCowboyBooks sums it up rather well, and Hodgson does sometimes affect a rather arch style which isn't for everyone. On the other hand, he's a significant figure in the development of the Cosmic Horror genre. He was an interesting person in himself, having the honour of being the person who chained up Houdini for the longest time. If you're inclined to give him another go, his occult detective stories are more accessible 🙂 5y
BarbaraBB @Bookwomble @SpaceCowboyBooks Thank you both for explaining a bit more about Hodgson. It is fascinating that he knew Houdini and I am definitely glad that he was an example to Lovecraft, whose books I DO like. I can see what his influence was on cosmic horror. 5y
Kalalalatja Great review 😂😂😂 5y
DreesReads I saw you were reading this and kept quiet. I read it a few years ago because of 1001 and...ugh. Bad dated horror is one thing I like even less than horror. Shocking 🤣 5y
BarbaraBB @DreesReads And there is quite a few bad horror on the 1001 list 😳 5y
DreesReads @BarbaraBB yes, I have read several 🙁 5y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB This is five years late, but... 😏 Hodgson didn't know Houdini. He attended his show in Blackburn, Lancashire and, with his knowledge of anatomy, managed to shackle the Great Escapologist in such a way that he struggled, but eventually succeeded, to free himself. The audience was not happy as it meant they didn't see the rest of HH's act, and Hodgson had to escape himself from an angry mob, stealing a bicycle to make his getaway! 4w
BarbaraBB @Bookwomble Lol how did you get back to this 5 years later 😀? A great story though, about Houdini! I scrolled through the comments above but have to admit I remember literally nothing of the book except that it‘s a favorite of yours! (edited) 4w
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB The book came up in my feed as somebody else posted about it, and I was just scrolling back 😄 4w
80 likes1 stack add19 comments
review
shadowspeak17
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Mehso-so

⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really liked the first half of this book. I was interested and very creeped out, my only complaint being that the word “presently” was used a bit excessively. Then somewhere around the halfway point, there‘s a particular thing that happens... and it just keeps going on and on and on, and I lost interest completely. It just went on way too long. It‘s such a bummer. Without that part dragging so much, this probably would have been a pick.

41 likes2 comments
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SGJ
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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This is kind of fun in an old-fashioned cosmic horror way (if that‘s your thing) (it‘s not mine), but there must have been just an abundance of commas in the early twentieth century. This book is just littered with them.

shendrix413 Ugh, comma splices..... 😜 7y
BookNotes I don't think I could read this because it's like grading English Comp essays. 😑😣 7y
41 likes2 comments
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LectricSheep
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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These commas are KILLING me. 💀Is the holiday stress finally getting to me, or does this bother other grammar nerds too?

readordierachel That is PAINFUL to read. 8y
LindsayReads 😝 8y
LauraJ I tend to over-punctuate and I think that's over the top! 8y
See All 11 Comments
BookishMarginalia Omg! I would bail. Now. Bail now! 8y
scripturient OMG! The horror, the horror! I could so not deal with this. 8y
LectricSheep @BookishMarginalia I knew you'd be horrified! 😅 8y
SuperPunkNinja Haha. I'm terrible with punctuation so I tend to write very short staccato sentences to be safe. 😀 8y
BookishMarginalia @LectricSheep You know me well! 8y
Hooked_on_books Oh that's awful. Grammar issues, particularly commas and apostrophes, drive me nuts. 8y
Jhullie Oh no, fellow Grammar Nerd here. I can't even look at it! 😱 8y
43 likes11 comments
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SerialReader
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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A creepy and surreal horror (or weird?) tale. Terrifying beasts ascend from a newly opened pit beside the narrator's home - and from there things only get stranger. Fair warning: the second half is a slog.

Oh and if you or someone you know uses Android, beta testing of Serial Reader is underway! Head to https://www.serialreader.org/android/ to find out more. Thanks! ❤️

20 likes3 stack adds
review
DreesReads
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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Panpan

Finally! I got bogged down in this book. It started off creepy with great promise. Then got boring and stayed boring. So many questions--it's like reading 2 short stories, but it's 1 novel. So odd, and so glad I'm done! One more check on my 1001 books list, though why is it on there?!

ReadingOver50 I read this earlier this year. The ending was very trippy, like some prolonged drug trip. I did enjoy the first half though. 8y
5 likes1 stack add1 comment
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DreesReads
The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson
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This book is creepy!