The Night Land
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The Night Land is a novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. H.P. Lovecraft described it in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written".
Clark Ashton Smith wrote of the novel "In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. Whatever faults this book may possess, however inordinate its length may seem, it impresses the reader as being the ultimate saga of a perishing cosmos, the last epic of a world beleaguered by eternal night and by the unvisageable spawn of darkness. Only a great poet could have conceived and written this story; and it is perhaps not illegitimate to wonder how much of actual prophecy may have been mingled with the poesy."
When it was written, the nature of the energy source that powers stars was not known: Lord Kelvin had published calculations based on the hypothesis that the energy came from the gravitational collapse of the gas cloud that had formed the sun, and found that this mechanism gave the Sun a lifetime of only a few tens of million of years. Starting from this premise, Hodgson wrote a novel describing a time, millions of years in the future, when the Sun has gone dark.
Hodgson also published a much shorter version of the novel, entitled A Dream of X.
It belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The beginning of the book establishes the framework where a 17th century gentleman, mourning the death of his beloved, is given a vision of a far-distant future where their souls will be re-united, and sees the world of that time through the eyes of a future incarnation. The language and style used is intended to resemble that of the 17th century. Once into the book however, the framing is more or less forgotten, and one of the strangest visions ever published in science fiction or fantasy is presented. The Sun has gone out: the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt, probably the first arcology in literature, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of energy powered from the Earth's internal energy, known as the "air clog." For millennia, vast living shapes - the Watchers - have waited in the darkness near the pyramid: it is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle's power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human.
To leave the protection of the Circle means almost certain death, or worse, but as the story commences, the narrator establishes mind contact with an inhabitant of another, forgotten, Redoubt, and sets off into the darkness to find her.
Strangely, at the conclusion of the adventure the narrative does not return to the framework story, leaving open the possibility that the narrator has gone mad with grief and chosen to continue to exist within his vision of the future, or has literally been transported there.
[edit] Abhumans
The term "Abhuman" was used by Hodgson in The Night Land to name (apparently) several different species of intelligent beings evolved from humans who interbred with alien species or adapted to changed environmental conditions and were seen as decayed or malign by those living inside the Last Redoubt, who preserved artificially (to an unspecified extent) their human characteristics, though they were not fit for the new environmental conditions.
[edit] Technologies of the Night Land
[edit] Telepathy
While the entire human population seems to have some capacity for telepathic commuication, the main character has unusually strong abilities and is capable of communicating with his lost love using his "brain-elements." This seems to indicate a specialized organ in the brain, perhaps evolved or genetically engineered, or perhaps some kind of implant. Hodgson also introduces a kind of authentication known as the "master word." This is reminiscent of a modern public-key cryptography; humans can apparently generate a correct response, while the non-human monsters who attempt to lead them astray by intercepting and forging telepathic communications can't do so.
[edit] Powdered Water and Food Tablets
Hodgson's hero sets out into the Night Land carrying lightweight food tablets and a sealed tube full of "water-powder." When a small quantity of this powder is exposed to air, it absorbs water rapidly from the air, reacting rapidly and producing drinkable water. While lightweight dehydrated foods exist, water-powder is scientifically implausible (though see deliquescence), but together these serve to explain how the hero can carry enough food and drink to survive his journey in the inhospitable Night Land.
[edit] The Diskos
The diskos is a weapon featuring a razor-sharp spinning disk on a retractable handle. When deployed the disk shoots out sparks. This invention may have been inspired by a hand-held children's toy that shoots sparks when a button is pressed to rev up a small spinning disk. It is also indicated that the diskos develops a special affinity for its owner during training and should not be handled by anyone else.
[edit] The Redoubt
The vision of the Great Redoubt is fascinating, as the city-sized building is described to contain millions of people and feature vast farmlands underground, powered by the mysterious "earth-current." The upper levels of the redoubt are at so high an altitude that they must be pressurized, and the residents have developed enlarged lung capacity.
[edit] Pastiche, homages and sequels
Greg Bear's short story, The Way of All Ghosts, dedicated to William Hope Hodgson, is set in the Way, the artificial space-time structure featured in several of Bear's novels, beginning with Eon (1985). A recurring character from these novels, Ser Olmy, is given a mission to investigate an experiment which had gone horribly wrong. The experimenters had attempted to open a gate into a universe of pure order, and the survivors find themselves trapped in a region of the Way that has transformed to a chaotic state resembling the Night Land.
There appears to have been a resurgence of interest in The Night Land in recent years, and a book of stories set in the world of the Night Land has been published, William Hope Hodgson's Night Lands: Eternal Love (2003).
[edit] External links
- E-text of The Night Land
- The Night Land, available freely at Project Gutenberg
- Night Lands: by the editor of Eternal Love with artwork, and the text of the stories from that collection.
- The Night Land (hardcover): inexpensive hardcover edition perpetually in print.
