Showing results for "The Voice in the Night" in Literature & Fiction

A weird tale that anticipates the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. There's terror on the high seas when crewmen on a ship encounter a man whose body is slowly being absorbed by a gelatinous cosmic horror.

Known for his nautical themes, William Hope Hodgson begins this story with a small rowing boat in distress and its sailor regaling a tragic tale. This story differs from many in the botanical gothic genre in that it features sinister fungi, as opposed to the traditional vines, flowers or trees.

The Voice in the Night is an uncanny story about a ship becalmed in fog in the middle of the Pacific. In the night, the watch hears a voice hailing the ship. It would seem to be a lone man in a rowing boat, but the individual does not wish to be seen. He is starving and urgently wants food - but despite this, he will not approach the ship and vehemently rejects the idea of being rescued. Instead they have to float some provisions out to him in a crate, which he takes off to a nearby island where his fiancée is dying of hunger.

It was a dark and starless night when a schooner becalmed in the Northern Pacific is a approached by a rowboat whose occupant although nonthreatening refuses to be seen. We find out who this hideous appearing creature is, and how he and his fiancée came to be marooned on an island inhabited by a strange fungus.

William Hope Hodgson, pese a ser uno de los escritores de terror más interesantes del siglo XX, se encuentra sumido en un injusto olvido.