Sloane moves his plot along at a quiet, patient motion – most of the scenes are utterly mundane, but with this mystery dangling over us, they become uncomfortable. It managed to draw me in from the first page, and when the fear came into play, I was already vulnerable. Sloane sets himself apart by infusing his terror with human sadness. Lovecraft’s stories have always been fairly emotionless, evoking nothing but fear. From the first sentences, we are instilled with a sense of tragedy, but also dread. The story is set when the narrator returns to his friend’s home to tell the man’s father the truth of his death. Lovecraft might have written this, but his version would have been drastically different from Sloane’s. When one falls in love with her, the other succumbs to unnamable fear, and unravels a truth too horrible to mention. The plot is straight out of Lovecraft – after finding their old professor burning to death under impossible circumstances, two college friends become involved in the professor’s enigmatic wife. Our tome today is William Sloane’s quiet tale of monstrosity called TO WALK THE NIGHT. Yet it sets itself apart from those by creating a style that I find wholly unique. It’s been quite some time since I published a Forbidden Tomes review, and I can think of no better way to revive the tradition than to discuss my latest cosmic read. This story is one of many that found new life last year, finding a place amongst authors like Charles Beaumont, Ray Russell and Thomas Ligotti.

To walk the night william sloane