Click here to order it now from Amazon.com!
ISBN # 1592246788
Published October 2003
By Wildside Press
The Year's Best SCIENCE FICTIONClick here to order it now from Amazon.com!
ISBN # 0312324790
Published July 2004
By St. Martin's Griffin Press
Available through the Science Fiction Book Club
ISBN # 1582880867
Published 2004
By Science Fiction Book Club of Bookspan
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NICK GEVERS in LOCUS Jan 2004
.. superbly written dying-earth fantasy of a very high order
DANIELLE L. PARKER in BEWILDERING STORIES, ish 132
Do not miss reading John C. Wright’s “Awake in the Night.” This wonderful
story was inspired by William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land, and I have
yet to find another writer who comes even close to reproducing the genuine
strangeness and thrill of that unique novel. There are few stories that
I read that I rate worth a second or third perusal, but this is one. It’s
certainly one of the best horror/fantasy stories I’ve read in many years.
Book Description, Amazon. com:
H P Lovecraft called THE NIGHT LAND "One of the most potent pieces
of macabre imagination ever written."
It is a very rich and strange book, set in a monster-haunted world where
the remnants of humanity have retreated to a great arcology, the Last
Redoubt. The sun has died, and not a star shines in the black heavens:
the Days of Light are less than a legend.
Notable contributors to this anthology include John C Wright (THE GOLDEN
AGE) and James Stoddard (THE HIGH HOUSE).
The story "Awake in the Night" by John C. Wright was included in the 2003 Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois. It was probably my favorite piece in this 600+ page anthology. The world described in the "Night Lands" ouerve is fascinating. Based on this one work I was eager to read more and to seek out this particular book.
Eons hence, Earth languishes in perpetual darkness, the light of civilization a mere flicker as well. A man battles inscrutable monsters and the very weight of time in this haunting and surreal tale of adventure. A+
John C. Wright follows his "Golden Oecumene" novels with "Awake in the Night," one of the few real standouts of this collection. Harks back to Poe, Dunsany, Lovecraft, Jack Vance, and maybe a few others, with original touches as well. A creepy and absorbing far-future fantasy that raises interesting questions about free will.