Roger Zelazny’s brilliant examination of horror tropes

 George R. R. Martin described A Night in the Lonesome October as ‘The Last Great Novel by one of the giants of the genre.’ A fair description. It’s also an absolute hoot. Roger Zelazny was a fun writer who left us too soon (I have a friend who routinely curses Zelazny for being a chain smoker) and A Night in the Lonesome October may be his funnest book.

I wanted to add a fun read to my Halloween October reading and rereading it proved to be a great choice.

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A Night in the Lonesome October is about Jack the Ripper trying to keep the Great Old Ones out of our world and is narrated by his dog.

But, oh, it’s even more fun than that.

When the full moon falls on October 31, it may be possible to open a gate into the elder gods realm. Strange and mysterious people will be drawn to the place where this could happen, openers who want to let them in and closers who want to keep them out. And they all have talking animals for buddies.

Taking place in Victorian England, the cast includes the Wolfman, Count Dracula, Doctor Frankenstein and his Monster, Sherlock Holmes and Rasputin. Zelazny lovingly filed serial numbers off of all of them while making it clear who he was talking about.

The whole book is a love letter to so many horror themes. One whole chapter is basically a synopsis of Lovecraft’s Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. And Zelanzy isn’t writing a parody. All of the characters are written with thoughtful respect. (Indeed, the Count in the two scenes he appears in is fascinatingly disturbing)

And it is all tied together by Snuff, Jack the Ripper’s dog who may actually be a transformed demon. Snuff has a cynical, world weary voice like other Zelanzy narrators like Conrad from This Immortal or Corwin from the first five Amber books. I have heard the tone described as hardboiled but it’s more like Rex Stout’s Archie Goodwin than Dashiell Hammet’s Continental Op. They are always more hopeful than they will admit.

And A Night in the Lonesome October is very much a meditation on hope. The Mythos deities are too nightmarish to actually appear. Jack cursed murderous nature is understated but clearly there. As I mentioned before, Count Dracula is an unnatural hole in reality.

But the Great Old Ones can be held off. People will do the right thing at great cost. And friendships are real.

A Night in the Lonesome October reminds us how much we lost when Roger Zelazny died so young.