The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

But they possess one quality, perhaps two, of the highest merit elements which are so unique or memorable that they singlehandedly lift the book they are contained within out of the great mass of the unremarkable and mundane. Many of their elements are stunted or misshapen. As aesthetic creations, they have no symmetry whatsoever and are not pleasantly proportioned at all. Other classic books, however, far fewer in number than the gazelles, are fiddler crabs. They provide rich portraitures of characters a reader comes to care for and identify with they immerse those characters in a detailed, memorable setting they lay out a series of events which are of intense interest to the characters (and thus to the reader) and which, in retrospect, create a meaningful and aesthetically pleasing pattern and they do all of this with a style of language which is itself aesthetically satisfying. They are pleasantly proportioned, graceful in their operation, and do a number of things very well. The Bad Luck Spirits’ Social Aid and Pleasure Club.The Cozy Apocalypse: On the Beach by Nevil Shute.SF Goes to College: Drunkard’s Walk by Frederik Pohl and Kampus by James Gunn.The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

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