H.P. Lovecraft

A Night in the Lonesome October is a satirical novel by Roger Zelazny published in 1993, near the end of his life. It was his last book.

The book is divided in 32 chapters, each representing one "night" in the month of October (plus one "introductory" chapter). The story is told in the first-person, akin to journal entries. Throughout, 33 full-page illustrations by Gahan Wilson (one per chapter, plus one on the inside back cover) punctuate a tale heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft. The title is a line from Edgar Allan Poe's Ulalume and Zelazny thanks him as well as others – Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Bloch and Albert Payson Terhune – whose most famous characters appear in the book.

A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the present-tense point-of-view of Snuff, the dog who is Jack the Ripper's companion. The bulk of the story takes place in London and its environs, though at one point the story detours through the dream-world described by Lovecraft in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Though never explicitly stated, various contextual clues within the story (the most obvious of which being the appearance of Sherlock Holmes (or "The Great Detective") imply that it takes place during the late Victorian period (in actuality, the year 1887 based upon Halloween full moon appearance dates[2] for the London area as confirmed by the Royal Observatory).

Alan Smithee wrote:Come to think of it, I can't remember reading anything by him. His influence is undeniable though. Have you ever read anything by Robert Block? I heartily recommend him.