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Sep. 30th, 2022 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreToday is September 30th, which means it's almost October! This year, I am going to do a thing I think about doing every October but have never actually done, which is to reread Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October by reading only the appropriate dated entry every day till Halloween. I intended to do it last year but ended up galloping through the whole thing in about two days because I hadn't read it in so long.
A Night in the Lonesome October is the horror equivalent of a cozy mystery: the premise is that a bunch of people are gathering to perform a mysterious ritual which builds throughout the month of October, wherein some of them are working at cross-purposes. The participants are people like Count Dracula or the Wolfman or Sherlock Holmes, and the book is narrated by Jack the Ripper's dog. The tone is a mix of homey and spooky, but never actually scary. It's delightful and I love it.
I've been trying to work out when I first read the book and I think I must have been about 12 or 13. I had definitely read Dracula (Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are probably why I picked it up in the first place) so I was older than 11, but I hadn't read any Lovecraft, so not yet 14. It's enjoyable if you aren't familiar with Lovecraft, but a little more fun if you are. Since I did it backwards, I got to be delighted when I reached parts of Lovecraft's Dreamlands that I knew from Zelazny.
Do you have favorite cozy Halloween media?
A Night in the Lonesome October is the horror equivalent of a cozy mystery: the premise is that a bunch of people are gathering to perform a mysterious ritual which builds throughout the month of October, wherein some of them are working at cross-purposes. The participants are people like Count Dracula or the Wolfman or Sherlock Holmes, and the book is narrated by Jack the Ripper's dog. The tone is a mix of homey and spooky, but never actually scary. It's delightful and I love it.
I've been trying to work out when I first read the book and I think I must have been about 12 or 13. I had definitely read Dracula (Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are probably why I picked it up in the first place) so I was older than 11, but I hadn't read any Lovecraft, so not yet 14. It's enjoyable if you aren't familiar with Lovecraft, but a little more fun if you are. Since I did it backwards, I got to be delighted when I reached parts of Lovecraft's Dreamlands that I knew from Zelazny.
Do you have favorite cozy Halloween media?
