A Night in the Lonesome October

This is such a wonderful mash-up of different elements all brought together.

Frankenstein, the werewolf, Dracula, Jack the Ripper, elder gods, and so much more. This book showed me that a writer can take a traditionally bleak subject and turn it around into something fun. One of the most interesting parts of this book comes from the readers rather than the author.

The book is split into thirty-one chapters, one for each day in October. Fans of this novel will read it one chapter per night throughout that month, experiencing each occurrence at the same time as the characters.

An overlooked classic by the late Roger Zelazny, at one chapter per day, A Night in Lonesome October is a perfectly paced journey through the spookiest month. Narrated by Snuff the watchdog (yes, an actual dog!), readers are quickly introduced to the month-long Game between “openers” and “closers,” magical agents preparing their spells to release/contain Lovecraftian Elder Gods. While the human “players” are a who’s who of the classics – Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, the Universal Monsters, and more – it’s their richly-drawn talking animal companions that take center stage to unravel the hidden patterns and machinations. A star-studded… show more.