Warren Fournier's Reviews > The House on the Borderland

I hesitated at first to give this 5 stars, but I waited about four months after reading it to write this review only to find that I had still remembered much of the novel vividly and was still thinking about it. That is a mark of a truly great work of art.

There is something about it that captures feelings of primal fear in me, as though Hodgson had been peeping at my nightmares when he wrote this. His writing captures a fundamental uneasiness that comes when one looks at a perfectly symmetrical human face, or a photoshopped Slenderman in the background of an otherwise boring picture of a schoolyard. The whole thing feels familiar and yet so alien, just like your dreams.

In other words, this book was the first to scare the shit out of my jaded and desensitized adult self in decades.

Even the agonizingly long psychedelic trip across the universe and time that happens inexplicably in the middle of the story is like a neverending nightmare you try to wake from, but your sleep paralysis holds firm. Sure, it gets boring and insufferable. But it is very disorienting and adds to the unease of the reader.

This is true horror scifi, and ahead of its time. I would be remiss to not give it my highest recommendation, because whether or not it ends up being your cup of tea, everyone should read it once.