A Night in the Lonesome October
First edition (hardcover) | |
| Author | Roger Zelazny |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Gahan Wilson |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 280 |
| ISBN | 0-688-12508-5 |
| OCLC | 27640649 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3576.E43 N5 1993 |
A Night in the Lonesome October is a novel by American writer Roger Zelazny published in 1993, near the end of his life. It was his final book, and one of his five personal favorites.
The book is divided into 32 chapters, each representing one "night" in the month of October (plus an "introductory" chapter). The story is told in the first person, like journal entries. Throughout the book, 33 full-page illustrations by Gahan Wilson punctuate a story that is heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft. (There is one illustration per chapter, in addition to one on the inside back cover.) The title is a line from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Ulalume", and Zelazny thanks him as well as other writers—Mary Shelley, 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 was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1994. A similar theme, conflict around the opening of a gate to another world, appears in Zelazny's 1981 novel Madwand.
Presented as a diary from October 1 to 31, the book has inspired readers to follow its timeline by reading one entry per day until Halloween.