A Night in the Lonesome October

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All of this is infused with clever, wry, and sometimes dark humor and peppered with smart allusions that feel organic and not, as in the hands of a less skilled writer they could be, pretentious. And eventually a vivid picture full of Zelazny's sophisticated and crisp imagery emerges - a much bigger and fuller picture than anything initially suggested, and it's lovely and menacing and dark and light at the same time. And I love it.

I went and dragged the corpse til I couldn’t manage another step. Then I dragged myself home, jaws aching, paws sore, my old injury from the zombie affair was acting up. Scommetto che non hai mai incontrato qualcuno che sappia tagliare veramente" ha continuato il muscoloso, avanzando. I'm overjoyed that it's finally available on Audible. Before that, if you wanted in audiobook format, you had to hunt down a rare (and expensive) CD copy, read by Roger Zelazny himself. He did a fine job, but he was not a professional narrator, and the audio quality was pretty rough. It sure looks like someone's already taken Snuff's upper-level course and graduated summa cum laude. Now if that isn't a winning Idiot Slobbering Expression, I don't know what is! Cheeter the squirrel, familiar to Owen (a druid, whose identity/inspiration seems fairly obscure; at least, I’ve never found a definitive reference to him)

New in Series

Weather Dissonance: There are always storm clouds hanging over the Good Doctor's house, whatever the weather elsewhere. It's a given that our motley crew gather together during this most auspicious month. It couldn't be any other 🎃 Let the games begin. My first reading of this was a wonderful surprise. I knew of Roger Zelazny, thanks to his classic Fantasy Amber series and his great SF tales ( Home is the Hangman, …. And Call Me Conrad, Lord of Light), but this is one I didn’t know much about until our Oracle of the Occult Randy Money pointed it out a couple of Octobers ago. It has been out of print here in the UK for years but is now available, thanks to Farrago Books, and is worth hunting out and read during the days leading down to 31st of October. One of the best parts of A Night in the Lonsesome October is trying to figure out which characters are actually participants in The Game, and which side they are on.

During the entire month of October, in the late 1800s, in a year when the full moon falls on Halloween, strange forces gather in a village outside of London. Various iconic characters ― who will be familiar to fans of Victorian literature and classic horror movies ― create shifting alliances, gather herbs, instruments of power and the odd eyeball and femur, and prepare for a mystery-shrouded event that will take place on Halloween night. I was hooked right away, around the time Snuff and the graveyard dog had a funny conversation and asked to see one another's teeth. One of the characters calls The Game, as it is known, a lunatic scavenger hunt. That's pretty much what it is. Snuff spends most of the book calculating where the gateway will appear, having to recalculate every time a player turns up dead...Trigger warnings! Mild violence and a scene with vivisectionists I'd prefer not to have read. I know it explains part of the story, but...I wish it could be otherwise. I don't deal well with this type of thing. It really bothered me. I think Zelazny could have "alluded" to what was going on, and it would have the same effect. That's my only gripe with the book.

The narrative voice is terse but effective, as it always is with Zelazny, and the characters involved are all a curious and reasonably well-developed folk that I wouldn't have previously imagined myself to root for. But I do still think that it could've used to set up the scene and the conflict a little bit more from the beginning, and by the same token, it ended rather abruptly as well. A brisk morning. After I made my rounds I went outside. I could discover nothing untoward, so I set off in the direction of the Good Doctor’s place. As I was trotting along the road, however, I heard a familiar voice from a small grove to my right: Left femur, you say?" came an ancient croaking voice from nearby, which could have been Owen's. "I've one right here I ain't usin'. Have you a liver, though? That's my need." A Night in the Lonesome October was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1994. [2] A similar theme of conflict surrounding the opening of a gate to another world exists in Zelazny's 1981 novel Madwand.

The banter is almost as awesome as the structure and simplicity of the storytelling. I think half of the book is quotable, but to truly experience it, I would recommend you to get several friends together and read it, preferably some time in October:):):) You will enjoy the way the characters gather their needed materials, which are supposed to be acquired in some very specific ways and times... Zelazny exhibits a particular talent in knowing when less is more and makes our imaginations work overtime with the hints he gives here and there. I am not sure I can find a weakness in the whole thing at all, and I am not even going to look for it. I just enjoyed it and the way it made me always look for the second meaning of every word and hint, making my brain feel full of champagne bubbles and kept me slightly buzzed throughout! Evgeny, you recruited me into the Legions of RZ's fans! Thank you once again! A new form of counting :D well now I know why does my dog have to pee on every bush while going for a walk. :D Subcontracting this crappy non-review to Graymalk the cat. She's hard at work right now, and should be able to deliver a most entertaining reading report post haste.