A review by lbrex
The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson

4.0

This is one of the most frustrating of the different "weird" novels and stories that I've been reading over the last two years. Its combination of science fiction and horror is inventive and intriguing, and there are many passages describing sinister, partially human forces on a post-solar earth that I will not forget. In some ways, you won't find more intriguing creations of weirdness and horror than you will find in _The Night Land_. That said, this book is also structured by a quest narrative to rescue a woman in peril, and the extent of the protagonist's macho exertions to rescue and protect the infantilized woman, "Nani," often made me want to gag. Nani seems utterly unable to process the clearly palpable danger that she and her rescuer are in, and the protagonist cycles through moments where he must discipline her (physically shaking her or whipping her) and moments where he wants this little girl-woman nestled against him in the endless cold night of the blighted and monstrous earth. These complaints, however, do make me wonder about the gender dynamics of Hodgson's work more generally, and I will certainly consider his other writings with this in mind. The fact that he ran a school of physical culture certainly seems pertinent here, as horror is here combined with an orgy of male heroism, something reminiscent of the oddest paragraphs of H. Rider Haggard.