What is this site?

This is a site focusing on old science fiction, including my thoughts on aspects of the fictional universes and poetry and my own writings inspired by these works. Currently, the site focuses on William Hope Hodgson's novel The Night Land, but I have plans to expand the site to include similar material for other older science fiction works.

For the purposes of this site "old" science fiction is arbitrarily set as anything published before 1960.

Why the name?

In the novel The Night Land, hour-slips are a kind of newspaper used in the Great Redoubt. They seem to be the main information medium. Therefore, it seemed an appropriate name for a website centered around the book.

About The Night Land

The Night Land is a science fiction novel with horror aspects, set in the distant future after the Sun has gone dark. The Earth has become a cold, dark wasteland filled with horrific monsters, some of which are powerful enough to destroy an army. Humanity survives only in two vast pyramid structures, "Redoubts", and one of these is about to fail...

The world of The Night Land is truly bizarre, a wonderful science-fiction/horror setting which is equaled by few other authors.  Reading the book, I am at turns fearful of the Evil Powers that move through the night and exalted with the wonder of the adventure through the forgotten lands.

Unfortunately, many potential readers of the novel have been turned away by the writing style, which is strange at best, confusing and cumbersome at worst. This is because Hodgson attempted to give the novel an archaic air, calling up associations of vast time which harmonize with the far-future world of the Night Land.

Also, some aspects of the relationship between the hero and his love interest might be questionable to many readers, as they do not conform with modern values of gender equality; however, this is not really a fault in the writing, as there is no reason to believe the society of many million years A.D. would have anything like modern gender relations.

The novel is well worth reading, despite the difficulty many modern readers may experience. It is a seminal work of science fiction, inspiring many other writers.  It also includes some of the first appearances in science fiction of concepts such as a megastructure with a self-contained environment ("arcology"), an energy shield, and weapons reminiscent of the vibro-weapons and energy blades of more recent SF.

Site history:

8/20/08: Site founded

8/26/08: Major improvements and construction on the site.

11/29/08: Cleanup and construction on the site.