The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror

by William Sloane

In the 1930s, William Sloane wrote two brilliant novels that gave a whole new meaning to cosmic horror. In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones and his college buddy Jerry Lister, a science whiz, head back to their alma mater to visit a cherished professor of astronomy. They discover his body, consumed by fire, in his laboratory, and an uncannily beautiful young widow in his house—but nothing compares to the revelation that Jerry and Bark encounter in the deserts of Arizona at the end of the book. In The Edge of Running Water, Julian Blair, a brilliant electrophysicist, has retired to a small town in remotest Maine after the death of his wife. His latest experiments threaten to shake up the town, not to mention the universe itself.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Classics, Lovecraftian

603 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

William^^Sloane

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed the two novels that are presented within this single volume. Though both novels were published in the 1930's, there is no shortage of character development or intrigue to provide innovative and engrossing scenarios for today's readers. In "To Walk the Night," a college professor dies under mysterious circumstances. The late professor's wife appears, seemingly out of nowhere, to charm an old friend of the professor and to sweep him off his feet. Something is not quite right, however, and the ensuing story is both captivating and ominous.

"The Edge of Running Water" involves a scientist's experimental quest to communicate with the dead. The story revolves around the characters that accompany the scientist in his old and isolated house on the water. The remoteness of the location brings a sense of dread to the atmosphere, and the surrounding townspeople pose a threatening hint of unease to the outsiders. The experiment itself is disquieting in nature, and distrust between some the characters brings high tension

Both of these stories work well due to the lack of genre restrictions. Both contain elements of horror, mystery and science fiction. The characters are relatable, and the writing keeps the movement within both novels flowing well and smoothly. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an immersive and imaginative reading experience.

[Jon Recluse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This omnibus edition, contains the short novels To Walk The Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939), the only long fiction output of forgotten author William Sloane (1906-1974). The reissue of these novels is long overdue, and cause for celebration.
Despite their age, these stories are a breath of fresh air...remarkable works that casually ignore genre boundaries, allowing the stories to go where they must, moving from mystery, to science fiction, to horror with subtle ease.
From the mysterious burning death of a college professor in To Walk The Night, to a widower's attempt to contact his late wife via an electric "seance" machine in The Edge of Running Water, Sloane tells his tales rationally, in a clear and concise prose style that is refreshingly accessible and vastly more chilling, with the kind of snappy, smart dialogue that has become so rare in fiction these days, just the right dash of humor and pacing that is damn near pitch perfect.
The only downside is that these are the only novels Sloane ever wrote. Truly a shame.

Highest possible recommendation for all fans of engaging, well written fiction.

Trivia Tidbit: The Edge of Running Water was adapted into the Boris Karloff film The Devil Commands (Columbia Pictures, 1941)

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Sloane only published two novels: "To Walk the Night" (1937) and "The Edge of Running Water" (1939). In 2015, the New York Review of Books Classics series published both in a beautiful edition titled "The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror", with a foreword by Stephen King.

While Sloane may have been inspired by some of his contemporaries, such as H. P. Lovecraft, Sloane defied easy categorization in the genre of science fiction. King, in his foreword, rightly states that Sloane's books may have contained elements of sci-fi but they were, in almost every sense of the word, horror. Specifically, cosmic horror.

Both novels are riveting in their slow pacing and somewhat purposeful lack of scientific explanation for the phenomena being described. They, at times, read more like noir thrillers than sci-fi or horror, which simply adds another fascinating element.

To give a plot synopsis would, inevitably, reveal spoilers, so I won't bother. Just know that these books are brilliant and truly creepy in their gradual build-up of dread.

[Panagiotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το βιβλίο το έπιασα με μια μεγάλη προσμονή ύστερα από κάποια σχετική κριτική. Επανέκδοση ενός διαμαντιού της δεκαετίας του '30, παραγνωρισμένο, που έρχεται τώρα να διεκδικήσει το μερίδιο της αναγνώρισης που του αξίζει. Τέτοιες υποσχέσεις ρίχνουν και τον πιο δύσπιστο βιβλιόφιλο. Και ήταν μια υπόσχεση που τελικά καλύφθηκε και με το παραπάνω.

Στις δύο ιστορίες τους τόμου θα διάβαζα μια μίξη επιστημονικής φαντασίας με τρόμο. Ένας συνδυασμός που, δεδομένης της εποχής, παραπέμπει στον κοσμικό τρόμο (cosmic horror) του Λάβκραφτ. Στην πρώτη ιστορία ο πρωταγωνιστής αφηγείται ένα αλλόκοτο ατύχημα ενός ιδιοφυούς καθηγητή αστροφυσικής (ένα περιστατικό που πολλοί θα παραπέμπει σε φαινόμενο αυτοανάφλεξη). Μια γυναίκα μπαίνει ανάμεσα σε εκείνον και τον εξίσου χαρισματικό, μαθηματικό φίλο του, καθώς προσπαθούν να ξεδιαλύνουν ένα αίνιγμα που παίρνει διαστάσεις κοσμικής φρίκης. Η οποία γυναίκα φαίνεται να μην έχει τίποτα κοινό με τον δικό μας κόσμο, με εμφανείς ελλείψεις κοινωνικοποίησης και μια αντίληψη που αγγίζει τα όρια του υπερφυσικού. Στην δεύτερη ιστορία ο ήρωας θα μιλήσει για τις μέρες που έζησε σε ένα σπίτι, στην Αμερικάνικη επαρχία, όπου ο σαλεμένος από τον θάνατο της γυναίκας του ηλεκτροφυσικός φίλος του, έχει κάνει μια ανακάλυψη πέρα από τα σύνορα της δικής μας πραγματικότητας, βάζοντας σε ρίσκο την ανθρωπότητα.

Κάποιος που έχει διαβάσει παλιά Αμερικάνικη λογοτεχνία φανταστικού, θα αναφωνήσει "Λαβκραφτ". Και θα πέσει έξω κατά πολύ. Γιατί ο Σλόαν δεν ακολουθεί την πεπατημένη. Δεν ακολουθεί συμβάσεις, δεν γράφει μέσα στα στενά όρια του είδους. Η ποιότητα της γραφής του είναι εξόφθαλμα καλή - είναι εξαιρετική. Και κάνει τον Λάβκραφτ να φαντάζει τόσο άτεχνος και παιδικός, αφελής. Τον αγαπάω όμως τον Λάβκραφτ, και είναι ένα σοκ να βλέπω έναν συγκαιρινό του να κάνει το ίδιο, μεταφέροντας σε άλλη κλάση πια αυτή την γραφή. Αν θέλω να είμαι επιεικής, θα πω πως εκεί που ο Λάβκραφτ έχει μια φορτωμένη, Γοτθική γραφή, φορτωμένη επίθετα, σχεδόν νευρικός να γίνει φρικιαστικός, ο Σλόαν γράφει με μια ποιότητα που θυμίζει μια μίξη καλών Βρετανών με ολίγη από την ευθύτητα Αμερικάνικης hard boiled noire, τύπου Τσάντλερ: σαρκαστικός, διεισδυτικός, ελίσσεται στον χώρο και τα πρόσωπα με μια εξαιρετική φινέτσα. Ο κόσμος του κάνει σεξ, διασκεδάζει, ανταλλάσσει απολαυστικά πράγματα, δίχως να γίνεται επιτηδευμένος.  Βασικά, απογειώνει την φανταστική λογοτεχνία σε ένα επίπεδο που δεν έχω ξαναδεί. Έχει χιούμορ, κινείται με χάρη και οξυδέρκεια στον κόσμο. Οι διάλογοι είναι σύγχρονοι.  Νομίζεις πως δεν διαβάζεις ένα βιβλίο γραμμένο 80 χρόνια πριν, άλλα ένα βιβλίο γραμμένο τώρα, σήμερα. Και όχι μόνο λόγω ύφους, αλλά γιατί οι αναφορές που γίνονται σε εκείνη την εποχή έχουν την πρωτοτυπία να μην μεταφέρουν τον πεπαλαιωμένο, ασπρόμαυρο κόσμο, αλλά μια ζωντανή πραγματικότητα, που θαρρείς πως θα απλώσεις το χέρι και θα την πιάσεις. Κάνει όλες τις σημερινές προσπάθειες να μεταφέρουν μια αλλοτινή Αμερική γραφικές.

Η διήγησή του δεν ακολουθεί κανόνες παρά μόνο αυτή της καλή γραφής. Έχει δε έναν απαλό, προσωπικό τόνο: μπολιασμένη, διακριτικά, με μια αναλυτική σκέψη που προσωπικά με ενθουσιάζει. Οι χαρακτήρες είναι έξυπνοι και οι διάλογοι ως επιώ το πλείστον έχουν τον ορθολογισμό που έχω βρει στον Τζιν Γουλφ και λατρεύω. Φαίνεται προσεκτικός άνθρωπος και οι σκέψεις του αποτυπώνονται στο χαρτί με τον ρυθμό που επιβάλλει ένα θετικό μυαλό.

Ο Σλόαν ήταν γνωστός συντάκτης λογοτεχνικών περιοδικών και επιμελητής ανθολογιών επιστημονικής φαντασίας. Παράλληλα σύστησε κι έναν δικό του εκδοτικό οίκο. Μόνο αυτά τα δύο συγγραφικά δείγματα έχει δώσει, τα οποία έγραψε στον ελεύθερό του χρόνο, τα Σαββατοκύριακα. Πρόκειται από τις λίγες φορές που έχω νιώσει πως ένας συγγραφέας σταμάτησε πρόωρα, με τεράστιες υποσχέσεις. Δεν ξέρω αν θα γινόταν τόσο διάσημος όσο φαίνεται. Αυτά είναι συγκυρίες. Αλλά θα έδινε έργα τα οποία ακόμα θα στέκονταν σε μια κορυφή ποιότητα και εκλεκτού ύφους, όπως τούτο εδώ. Κρίμα που ο χώρος δεν άρπαξε τέτοιες ευκαιρίες και έμεινα στην πλειοψηφία σε ένα εμβρυικό στάδιο, να αναμασά στερεότυπα από γραφιάδες μέτριους. 

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Rim of Morning collects the two published novels of William Sloane, both of which contain science-fiction, horror and mystery elements distilled into "cosmic horror."

Sloane's first novel - To Walk the Night - moves slowly, with a very subtle buildup of small clues and minor happenings carefully crafted to build a sense of dread in the reader. Like the stories of "Weird" authors such as Lovecraft and Blackwood, the ultimate horror emerges from a suggestion that humanity's place within the realm of existence might be more tenuous than we expect, as well as an inference of powerful mostly-unknown beings that might play a terrible part in our future.

Sloane's second, and final, novel - The Edge of Running Water - is more polished than its predecessor. The "cosmic horror" plot has more of a mystery vibe this time around, and the flip side of the often slow pacing is a gradually building suspense that pays off in a more satisfying conclusion that still leaves plenty to the imagination. Despite populating the story with recognizable caricatures (the befuddled professor, the redneck townies, the love interest, etc.) Sloane invests them with enough humanity to give the reader an interest in their various fates.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short take:

These two books rocked me. In both, Sloane leverages a standard plot and spins a creepy--and creeping--story that draws you towards a single moment of revelation that truly horrifies. In the last decade, or so, I've read a large number of horror novels, and few of them amount to even half the stature that Sloane achieves in these novels.

One element that I loved is how Sloane combines the mundane with the uneasy. In each novel, a principle character is aware that something fundamentally wrong is happening within his life, yet he continues to eat, shop and deal with heartfelt matters. The horrific element is not the "star" of the story; it is the splinter in what would otherwise be a normal life.

If Sloane had wrote other books, I would hunt them down; that said, these two books, alone, constitute a remarkable legacy.

More thoughts:

For all of my praise, it occurs to me, now, that I was probably in the perfect mood and mindset to read these books. I could see other fans of weird fiction picking these ups and finding the slow-burn dull and the reveals trifling. To recommend these books, I would have to know a reader's tastes well.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Stephen King's introduction, we learn about William Sloane that "... books were [his] life. ... [He] worked for a number of publishing houses, directed the Council on Books during World War II... and went on to serve as managing director of the Rutgers University Press. He also formed his own well-respected publishing company, William Sloane Associates..."

In short, he spent his life around books (also editing anthologies) without writing them. ~ with the exception of these two extraordinary novels. King remarks that, although the novels are "actual works of literature", they are [p]erhaps not great literature."

I don't agree with that remark. I think they're pretty great.

Saved from further obscurity by the smart folks at NYRB, 'The Rim of Morning' consists of 'To Walk the Night' and 'The Edge of Running Water' - what might be better described as lengthy novellas. They are aptly referred to as examples of 'cosmic horror' and, off-hand, I can't think of other titles that fall in line with that form. Or, rather, I suppose I could... but not the way that Sloane has written them. He wrote authoritatively, as though he had invented the category.

Attempting a summary of either plot would put both stories at major risk of spoilers since both rely so heavily on premise. Suffice it to say that the first tale has much to do with the nature of the soul, the second is concerned with the nature of the departed. The first one actually scared me; the second left me in a state of intrigue.

I found 'To Walk the Night' more successful - in the sense that I found it more of a piece. It has a marvelous construction (and a particular fondness for chapters closing with cliffhanger sentences). Its sense of dread is constant throughout and it's full of food for thought:

"You all talk incompletely," she went on. "Listen to what people say to each other sometime. The real conversation isn't wholly in the words. The words are clues to what the person speaking is trying to convey. The rest of it goes direct from one mind to another. You must have noticed that."

What's true of both stories is that they hinge on ideas that are so fantastic (in a science fiction sense) that neither story could really end in a satisfactory manner while also being believable.

But Sloane prepared for that. Yes, he has given us endings. But 'To Walk...' concludes by giving the reader a little something extra, something he / she can fill in independently (which adds an extra menace). 'The Edge...' does something similar but its scope seems larger, leaving the reader guessing more about what was about to be unleashed.

I'll admit I was a bit frustrated with 'The Edge...' as I found myself halfway-in. It didn't seem to have quite the same manic / taut urgency as 'To Walk...'. It asks more of the reader in terms of patience. It has more of the slow-burn of something like Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House' (which it sort of anticipates for a tangential reason).

For me, this was a unique discovery of a singular talent. It seems this was all that Sloane gave us. But he certainly made his mark.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great find and a spectacular set of old-school horror novels. These are masterfully done and make me genuinely sad that Sloane didn't write more.

These books are real genre mashups, with bits of noir and mystery thrown in. Excellently atmospheric, with both centering on scientists in search of something they probably shouldn't find.

If you don't read horror or think you don't like it or it's too scary, you'll be surprised at these books. Recommended for fans of Shirley Jackson.

[Samuel Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

'In the Edge of Running Water' is bloated and has aged poorly.

'To Walk the Night' is practically a masterpiece of gesturing toward the unspeakable, with just the edges illuminated and the rest filled in (or impossible to fill in) by the reader. The scene where Selena walks into the apartment, notices the Brancusi and says 'A shame it isn't perfect...' is earth shaking in its subtle power.

[Shy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that got me back into reading! Before this I hadn't been able to finish reading anything more than the back of a shampoo bottle in over 4 years.

It's written in a very modern way. I only wish the author would have written more. This should be a genre of its own. The novel has elements of cosmic horror, noir, and mystery. All perfectly balanced. I read the stories in order and found myself liking The Edge of Running Water more. While I found it enjoyable to read and easy to visualize, I wasn't afraid... that is until I was in bed that night trying to sleep.

The imagery in both novels slowly creeps into your mind until you find it expanding out like a dark cloud that will color your perception of everyday life events.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closer to a 4.5, between the first novel getting a glowing almost 5 and the second getting a slightly less glowing something just over 4. check out the reviews for those!

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun reading the first of these two novels, To Walk the Night, over the past week, during my annual bout of pseudo-bronchitis.

It begins in-media-res, with our narrator, Berkely “Bark” Jones, having just finished a drive to the home of his friend Jerry Lister’s father, off of Long Island Sound. He knows the house well, and in fact has a room there that is kept for him even when he’s away, because Jerry’s father, whom Bark calls “Dad”, basically adopted him as an adolescent, due to Bark’s parents being absent. Bark is there to explain to Mr. Lister, who is a scientist and a man of reason, why his son Jerry, after recently getting married, has committed suicide (hold your jokes). Naturally, it’s a long story.

The novel, most of which is composed of Bark’s monologue, delivered with occasional interruptions from Dr. Lister as they sit behind the house in the dark and Dr. Lister sips sherry, reads for a while like the Hardy Boys on acid. Bark and Jerry, in addition to being friends from adolescence, are recent graduates of the same northeastern university. They return to the university one weekend to attend a football game; afterwards, Jerry suggests they look in on an old professor who was his sort of mentor. Jerry was the only man in their year, Bark says, who took professor LeNormand’s class in Celestial Mechanics. LeNormand, we are given to understand, almost always works alone; has no interest in women, socializing or other such frivolities; and was recently embroiled in a controversy because he’d written a paper that his peers in the scientific community took shits on. What was the paper about? Oh, just refuting Einstein about something or other- Bark tried to read the paper, couldn’t understand it. When the two friends arrive at the professor’s laboratory, they find him dead. Not only is he dead, but it appears that a fire has burned out most of his upper body. Why hasn’t it burned the rest of him? Why not the chair they find his body sprawled over? Maybe he lit a cigarette or a pipe, accidentally put it in his shirt pocket, and…? No, doesn’t seem likely.

They report the death and give their statements to both the university president (who “puts” them “on (your) honor, as U. men”) and a detective Parsons, both of whom find the boys’ story (that there was no one else in the laboratory when they arrived, that LeNormand was dead when they found him) so unlikely that it is probably true. A couple of days later, Parsons asks them if they’d be willing to visit and speak with Professor LeNormand’s widow- maybe they can offer her some comfort. She’s asked for them specifically, after hearing that they found LeNormand’s body. But wait- Professor LeNormand was married? Jerry, who worked closely with LeNormand, can’t believe it. But it’s true- he’s been married for the past three months, although none of his colleagues at the university can remember having met the woman before that time. When Bark and Jerry do meet her, Bark finds her strange. How he finds, or found, her strange, is something that he struggles to articulate exactly to Dr. Lister.

William Sloane published To Walk the Night, the first of his two novels, in 1937, and a small part of my enjoyment of the book consisted of the great old-fashioned usage of language. Bark worries, for example, that he and Jerry will get into a “row.” Jerry tells him not to be a “damn fool.” Some readers may complain that the language is ‘dated’, but I loved reading it. And then there’s this sentence, which absolutely boggles my mind: “I’d been drinking so much that my hand trembled every time I picked up a glass, and several mornings I had to go to a barbershop rather than risk shaving myself.” Uh, is it really such an egregious breach of decorum to not shave on one particular morning? So egregious that you would have to go…to the barbershop? I barely have time in the mornings to get coffee at McDonald’s before work, never mind going to the barbershop. Chances are no one will even notice. And if you’re really drinking that much, haven’t you probably already stopped observing such social niceties? That sentence, more than anything, reminded me that I was reading about a different time.

Anyway, Jerry and professor LeNormand’s widow, Selena, fall in love. Or rather, they are drawn to each other in some occluded, sinister way that no one quite understands, and decide to get married. There are things about Selena that don’t make sense to Bark, but he finds it hard to pinpoint specific examples. There’s no smoking gun, and this is both part of To Walk the Night’s theme and Bark’s (unnecessary) justification for telling this long story; maybe if he meticulously goes over every seemingly unrelated, picayune memory and event, things will start to add up. But he continually warns Dr. Lister, who is indescribably composed while staring into the darkness and sipping his sherry but who understandably wants the full story about the circumstances under which his son committed suicide, that it may be better not to put all the pieces together; Jerry, he warns, found the answer, and look what happened to him. Nevertheless, his story paints a picture of Selena that becomes eerie. Why is it that when she speaks, for example, she never seems to make an allusion or a reminiscence? How is it that she is educated and intellectually curious enough to be fascinated by ancient Arabic treatises on math, but won’t discuss her past or where she received her education? How did she know to pull that emergency break in the car, right before a bus came out of nowhere and almost hit them? And then there is the strange story that detective Parsons shares with Bark, and him alone, some time after LeNormand’s death. Parsons first confesses that he has no leads or suspects in the case. Then he tells Bark that earlier in the year, a family from South Carolina- a father, mother and daughter- was on vacation in New York. The daughter, Parsons explains to Bark, was an “idiot”- not the term we’d use today, naturally- named Luella Jamison. The parents left her alone in the car for a few minutes at a gas station, and when they returned she had disappeared. The disappearance, Parsons explains, took place only a couple of days before LeNormand and Selena got married. Just a coincidence, of course. But there’s an old picture of Luella Jamison that Parsons shows Bark. The family didn’t have anything recent, unfortunately. But even in an old picture, doesn’t Luella Jamison look a little bit like…?

Bark’s attempts to explain to Jerry why he thinks there’s something not exactly right about Selena go about the way you’d expect your attempt to explain to a friend why you don’t like his or her significant other would go- that is, poorly. After the wedding, Jerry and Selena decide to move to New Mexico for a year, so Jerry can work on his thesis without disruption. They live in an isolated house on the edge of a mesa, surrounded by desert; the closest town is called Los Palos. For a while, Bark doesn’t hear from them. And then he receives a telegram from Jerry, asking him to come as soon as possible.

To Walk the Night reminds me of some of the other short, powerful novels/novellas I’ve read that have involved love triangles (to use the term loosely), and a couple of which also involve deserts: The End of the Road by John Barth, Point Omega by Don DeLillo, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles and The Quiet American by Graham Greene. A comparison/contrast with Lovecraft is pretty much unavoidable, in part because the back of the book (and the physical book itself, by the way, published by the New York Review of Books, is fucking beautiful- just look at that cover) tells us that “In the 1930s, William Sloane wrote two brilliant novels that gave a whole new meaning to cosmic horror”, and Lovecraft is the only author I associate with this term. The sentence suggests that the term had a meaning before these novels, which could be true…so what does it refer to? I don't know. But I’ve personally decided to take it to refer to something like this well-known quote from Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulu’:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

Voyaging too far beyond the placid island of ignorance turns out to be, in a way, what killed LeNormand as well. I think it’s interesting that this novel was published, as I mentioned, in 1937, not long before the atomic bomb was created and subsequently used, and not long after they split the atom for the first time. It’s also interesting that the novel’s eerie denouement comes in the desert of New Mexico, near a town called Los Palos. From what I can tell, there is no such town in New Mexico. There is however a place called Los Alamos, which is where they had the Manhattan Project; but not until 1942. In The Edge of Running Water, Sloane’s other novel, a scientist in a small town in Maine is rumored among the locals to be working on ‘some kind of death ray’; according to Wikipedia, a ‘death ray’ is also one of the rumors that people believed about what was being worked on in Los Alamos; again, however, The Edge of Running Water was published in 1939. Strange.

But the aspect of the Lovecraft quote that I think is equally relevant with regards to To Walk the Night is the part about the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents being the most merciful thing in the world; this is reflected in the narrator's reluctance to do just that, for fear of some dreadful knowledge. Stephen King tells us in the introduction (which you should wait to read until after you’ve finished the novel) that Sloane once met Carl Jung, and was surprised to discover that Jung had read To Walk the Night, in an earlier form as a play, and liked it. I remember reading one of Jung’s case studies, in which he described a patient who had a disturbing recurring dream. It was a dream in which the patient would be alone in a completely dark room with unknown boundaries, and, in the course of looking for the way out, would find a crying baby, its face smeared with feces. Creepy dream, I've always remembered it. Anyway, I also remember that Jung’s take on it was that it suggested a ‘latent psychosis’, and he advised the patient to discontinue psychoanalysis. The implication being that it would be better for this patient not to learn to deeply about himself. I don’t know if this is standard psychological practice, but it's a pretty frightening idea.

One major difference between Sloane and Lovecraft is that Sloane is just in my opinion a much better writer. He creates memorable characters, good dialogue, and To Walk the Night has some beautiful descriptions of the southwest:

“If you are used to the little landscapes of Long Island, of New Jersey, even of upstate New York, it takes quite a while to realize the real size of Western scenery. The southernmost peak of the range across the valley was probably as far from where I sat as New York is from Philadelphia. And there was scarcely a thing to catch the eye between me and it…The ridges, the sharp, unweathered angles of the rocks, the wild, jumbled rise and fall of the land gave me a sense of isolation. Man was a stranger to this sort of country; it belonged on some airless planet circling sunward of the earth.”

Which is pretty much exactly what a close friend once told me about that area of the country.

I also enjoyed the second novel, The Edge of Running Water, but not as much. Stephen King disagrees with me. It's about an aging electrophysicist whose wife dies. He can't get over it, and tries to invent a machine that will enable him to communicate with the dead, which is clearly a bad idea. The story's kind of maudlin.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to read that William Sloane went on to write more novels, or maybe episodes of The Twilight Zone. He worked as an editor, and apparently managed the university press at my alma mater, but it sounds like he never wrote anything else after these two novels. I wonder why.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains two novels and I've reviewed each separately below:

To Walk the Night

A tragic tale of two friends who happen upon a mystery and the woman that comes between them. The story begins after the death of one of the friends when the other is visiting the dead friend's father and the two of them are trying to make sense of what happened as he re-tells their story.

In some ways it is a story that reflects its time but still feels fresh and is a pleasure to read. There is a creeping sense of unease throughout although I suspect that modern readers will see the end coming more quickly than a reader in the 1930's might have. Still a good story though.

In The Edge of Running Water

Another tragic tale of two friends but this one is perhaps a little more sinister and unsettling. A young psychologist is contacted out of the blue by his former mentor and electrophysisist friend who resigned his university post after the death of his wife. He wants him to visit him in his isolated place of residence to ask his advice on a secret project he has been working on. But all is not well with his old friend and the nature of his work has taken a fearful direction...

Between the cold, callous manipulations of Mr's Walters, the brutal mentality of the small town community and the strange, death defying nature of Julian's contraption, this is an unsettling story and a great tale of early horror.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Rim of Morning - Two Tales of Cosmic Horror' by William Sloane features two novelettes with unrelated male narrators in differing plots who each find themselves unexpectedly in a new normal. Each of the main characters in each story seem remarkably similar in personality - very Victorian to me - who are surprisingly prim and proper men for stories written in the 1930's. They are very high hat in attitudes. Nonetheless, each one finds themselves in the middle of a mystery where a scientific horror changes everything. When I say 'scientific', think 1950's drive-in movie 'science' starring Vincent Price or Boris Karloff.

Gentle reader, the endings of these two stories are fun. However, the writing is extremely proper English and the two protagonists exist in very upper middle-class bourgeois lives. Two-thirds of each book profile a slight unraveling of their sense of reality due to meeting unusual people. Disconcerted and disbelieving, the incontrovertible facts force them out of their conventional paths of thought. They each enter a twilight zone!

The books are:

-To Walk the Night (1937)

-The Edge of Running Water (1939)

These are genre-bending stories. They begin as regular fiction plots, become mysteries, take a turn to science fiction, then end as horror (not graphic horror by any measurement).

I do not want to reveal more since not only most of the enjoyment is the slow unfolding of the mystery, it is also the questions left unanswered! Modern YA readers might find the style reminding them of 19th-century gothics.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A year ago it would have seemed to me ridiculous to assume that there are some facts it is better not to know, and even today I do not believe in the bliss of ignorance or the folly of knowledge. But this one thing is best left untouched. It rips the fabric of human existence from throat to hem and leaves us naked to a wind as cold as the space between the stars.

The fringe of that cold touched me once. I know what I am talking about.

I’m a big fan of the nyrb imprint; they put out a ton of cool stuff, with a wide reach. Reissuing these two long out of print “cosmic horror” novels by basically a footnote of an offer is a great service.

Bit stories are solid; neither are classics of the form, but Sloan could write, and both stories are well paced - I stole much time to finish the first this morning and the to profess through second during the day. The term “cosmic horror” is one that I like, and that I feel fits the lovecraftian space really well - these are both more cosmic-horror-adjacent though; the first takes its horror more from the basics existence of that which is other, while second is more of a Herbert-West-lite (different focus, no resurrections) “science crossing into mysticism can be scary” type tales.

But they’re good, and they’re fun, and I’m always glad to read these sorts of yarns.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, man, these are just terrific, spooky tales that are better than Lovecraft! Where Lovecraft is ponderous and idiotically repetitive in his language, Sloane is succinct and simple, letting the horror slowly unfold in an almost banal or casual manner. And there is much horror to be had in these two novels (his only two novels).
I must warn the reader, though: these two stories are of the old school and what I mean by that is there are no venomous lesbian werewolves, covetous transgender succubi with English degrees, or any kind of beautiful teenage messiahs born to a human father and a leprechaun mother.
Instead, in the first selection, you get a locked-room mystery, in an observatory, no less, involving an astronomer, a strange and sourceless white fire and his creepy beautiful wife. In the second selection, you get a physicist determined to break down the barrier between the living and the dead through his experiments in rural Maine.
I can't recommend these enough.

[ash | songsforafuturepoet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, effective storytelling, cosmic horror, crisp prose.

4.5 stars. Two simple stories told with intent to ignite an existential fear in readers. Similar to the likes of Jeff VanderMeer and James Smythe, Sloane combines a number of genres, not letting the story to be too focused on one, but rather allows the story to go where it naturally goes.These are stories with a very focused plot, circling around the experiences of a few individuals.

Again, like the two authors, Sloane does not give you the satisfaction of knowing everything. It's the foundation for cosmic horror - the fear that you're encountering something much bigger than you and forever out of your very human grasp of understanding.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book on my radar for years, but earlier attempts to read it stalled out early on. Now, reading it through (in two chunks since there are two novels contained within), I can see that earlier-me was mistaken - it is well worth reading. This is not a beach read, not even exactly horror, for sure, but it is intricate and interesting and worth the time it takes to consume. Sloane had a particular way of writing, and there are few other novels quite like this, though some have tried a similar path.

As mentioned, there are two novels, here - To Walk the Night and The Edge of Running Water - and both are fairly similar in length and in general plot points. Both are novels that are physically short (the combined page count, with Stephen King's introduction, being only 480 pages) but both read long. Both deal with a certain type of scientific, cosmic horror and pushing past the boundaries of human understanding [and suffering for it]. Both involve an older, male, mentor scientist type becoming caught up with a) some fringe scientific oddity and b) a woman. Said woman, in both novels, is as close to a proper antagonist as the book offers [the latter does have some angry townsfolk types, but they occupy a smaller portion]. In both novels, there is a suspicious/inexplicable death that drives a police inquest and whose explanation ultimately is tied up with the central mystery but not really in a satisfactory way. In both, there is a romantic element. Both involve scientific types going to remote locations. In both, there is the sense of adoptive families. Both spend a long time describing ephemera and only get to the true meat of the matter in the last 10% or so. Both finish with many questions, including the main question, unanswered, though the first tries a bit overhard to explain itself without telling all, and ends up stumbling a bit.

The second novel, The Edge of Running Water, is the stronger novel of the two with a better romance, a better protagonist, and overall better structure despite spending huge swaths of pages describing going for a swim and the inquest. Its conceit, a grieving scientist's attempt to talk to the dead, and said conceit's resolution, has a more naturally chilling aspect which is backed up by the remote, Maine farmhouse that acts as its setting. The inexplicable death is more mundane, but for it has a larger threat. Once the device is finally revealed, it is unlike anything the reader might have dreamed, but is aesthetically perfect to drive home the mishmash of science and Other.

The first, To Walk the Night, has perhaps the better ending and deeper cosmic feeling to its mystery, without the need for the romp of an ending the second novel has, though the ending (as remarked) is marred by Sloane spending a few extra pages trying to make sure the reader sees his already perhaps overloud winks.

The first novel ultimately feels like a short story with padding, with much of the page count being a form of stalling to build up questions and false tension, while the second finds a better balance with its central, short theme and the larger way it fits into the ecosystem of the characters, though some padding remains.

In the sense of literary critique, or book club discussion, something could be said about the central, antagonistic nature of the women within. In To Walk the Night, she is odd and beautiful and out of place in society, though friendly on the surface and closed underneath. In The Edge of Running Water, she is more brusque and more open, but controlling and manipulative and prone to plans and machinations that are left unknown to very near the end. Both are exaggerations of the feminine mystique and other stereotypes about the way women interact with men. The first embodying the "unreachable" aspect of femininity, the trope of men being unable to understand women and where they come from and what they want. The second embodying the concept of women being more in touch with the Other than men, more naturally weird and witchy, but also being big and bitchy and petty to protect their secrets. That Sloane largely casts women as more ultimately capable - rarely is any real mystery solved entirely by a man, merely guessed at before it destroys him - and as more opaque is both a dive into trying to fix a sort of gap that Lovecraft, et al, might have left, but also invokes certain old types of sexism with a "new" (for the 1930s) light.

Neither are particularly "lovecraftian" in their cosmic flair, though both touch upon plots and devices that Lovecraft and/or his close circle of writers wrote. I think Lovecraft would have liked both of these, despite the scientific-romance nature of both stories. They both embody that sort of New England man-of-learning vibe. Both are superior to similar attempts by other writers (*cough* The Philosopher's Stones *cough*) because neither are trying to outdo others in cosmic horror, merely to see it through a different lens. For all that, the scientific basis for both of these is perhaps more...palatable, even as it is inexplicable.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rim of Morning collects William Sloane's short novels To Walk the Night and The Edge of Running Water. Having finished the former, I offer a pocket review of it while it's still fresh in my mind:

To Walk the Night - 2.5 stars
Though William Sloane creates a carefully crafted atmosphere of suspense and a feeling that something is not quite right with the world, I took away a conclusion utterly contrary to what the author intended. I was on the side of the entity. Our protagonists' (Bark, Jerry & Jerry's father) were tragically wrong in their reaction to Selena, the otherworldly being who briefly lives among us. I was profoundly disturbed and aghast at the baseless xenophobia and loathing expressed by the narrator (Bark) and his companions. Selena may not have made the wisest choice in trying to pass as human, but she's not malevolent, and circumstances could have turned out so much better if only these stellar examples of manhood had shown a bit more tolerance and understanding.

I wouldn't recommend this book but the writing is fine and the pacing decent. It's a slow build up to the denouement and there are no "explosions" but it effectively engaged this reader. I just can't accept its conclusion. Read the blurb, read the reviews & make up your own mind. To Walk the World may be worth your time.

The Edge of Running Water - 3.25 stars
I enjoyed The Edge of Running Water much more than I did To Walk the Night. The story is pretty standard - a genius scientist loses his wife and becomes obsessed with reviving or reincarnating her or contacting her beyond the grave. In this case, Helen Blair dies and her husband Julian isolates himself in a remote Maine village where he constructs a machine that does open a portal to someplace other. That it is a portal to the afterlife, however, is unlikely (or it's an afterlife no living mind can comprehend).

As in To Walk the Night, there are no "explosions" or tentacled monstrosities from the edges of Space. The only real "bad guy" is Mrs. Walters, a medium who hopes to exploit the device to become rich. Even then, when she kills Mrs. Marcy, the cleaning lady, it's an accident. But Sloane is excellent at creating an atmosphere that suggests that all hell can break loose at any moment:

The blackness over the center of the black table grew. It expanded in the air with steadily increasing speed. The seven figures never move, never looked at it, were deaf to the sound that filled my ears and hammered at the walls of the room till it was wonderful that they did not shatter. As the thing grew, it became more clearly three-dimensional, although that description is in itself meaningless. We know, in actual experience, nothing which is not three-dimensional. Dimension is a fact with three attributes, length, breadth, and thickness, but they are triune and inseparable aspects of material existence. Not so this heart of darkness that beat in and out, to and fro, larger and smaller, over the center of the table. It had no dimension at all. It consumed dimension, negated it, developed like a parasite on the shape and frame of the familiar world.

I would recommend The Edge of Running Water primarily for the writing. The characters aren't too memorable. The strongest is Ellen Hoskins, the sheriff's sister, who acts as his assistant (it is a remote village) and immediately grasps the situation though she doesn't know its cause; and the story goes back to Orpheus seeking his Eurydice but it's well told and well paced.

[Daniel Polansky]

Pre-war horror seems to have needed to be, essentially, less horrifying than its modern version. That is to say that you’re much more likely (as in these) to have a story framed around something more uncanny than violent or terrifying. These two short novels are skillfully constructed, the writing is definitely a notch above most of Sloane’s contemporaries (damning with faint praise) but probably most readers will find the underlying revelations, not to put too fine a point on it, not that scary? It’s an interesting counterpoint to Lovecraft, for instance, whose prose is pretty squalid but whose nightmares were so horrifying that they somehow managed to compensate for his lack of professional comptence. These are better in all regards, except for not having enough sting. Then again, the sting is the point of a horror story, isn’t it? Still, it holds up better than 90% of horror fiction of its time. Keep.

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

290216: two short books from the 1930s i have never heard of, intro by stephen king, but the phrase 'cosmic horror' makes me think of hp lovecraft- whom i like sometimes, but this work is entirely too sane, direct, clear, and nowhere near as stylistically cyclopean... actually like king... so, good but not great...

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Math from beyond the stars and radio signals from beyond death feature in these two pulp cosmic novels from Mr. Sloane.

Excellently, literately written. Lovecraft slowed down, but made human--an excellent tradeoff. I'm not sure why these books haven't been made into movies yet. They're both filled with magnificent settings, relateable characters, and nice plot twists.

[Lynsey Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this girl knows her cosmic horror; sometimes I long for
Cthulhu to rise up from the ocean and end this tawdry little planet once and for all. But in all my cosmic horror readings I have never come across anything quite like these stories.

They where quiet, subtle, versions of mind bending horror. They told tales of normal people thrown into terrible situations where the terror may or may not have been something out of this world. Spoiler alert, it’s always the terror from outside this world.

They didn’t fill your brain with monsters and purple prose like Lovecraft and they didn’t liquify your mind and soul and reason to have hope like Ligotti. These must have been two of the most downplayed cosmic horror tales I’ve read.

And this is not a bad thing… not at all. The writing style is beautifully of its time. Both plots are very intriguing. All characters are beautifully shaped. And the horror is there lurking throughout, until it comes out and ruins our protagonists life’s for good, as otherworldly life far greater than our own will do that to you.

These stories also lean very much onto the sci-fi side of literature, especially the first story. But again this is dwelt on in a subtle way that doesn’t jar with the flow of the stories or their weird tale essence. And as well as being cosmic horror their focus on atmosphere rather than gore, makes them also fall well inside the bracket of a weird tale.

The main structure of both stories is pretty similar with the same kind of characters and some plot duplications, but both stories are wonderful in their own right. My fave of the two was the first, but not by much.

It is a shame that Mr Sloane only wrote these two stories as I can imaging anything from him would have been brilliant and he deserves to be better known.

Not sure why Stephen King was invited to do the introduction, he wishes he could come up with anything half as good.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

the fact these two stories were written in 1937 and 1939 makes this book, which collects the two, all the more incredible... the first story, 'To Walk The Night', holds its unspoken and horrible sense of dread all the way through... i loved this story, with its otherworldly undertones from the beginning... Sloane i quite the writer for this time period, and i haven't read many stories that hold my attention and emotions so well without resorting to explicitness or extravagance... 'The Edge Of Running Water' is an altogether different tale, it speeds along with a sense of unstoppable but benign forcefulness... the tile threw me until i finished the story, then it kinda slammed into me with a feeling of awe for how well Sloane carried off the tale... echoes of 'The Twilight Zone', 'Tales From The Darkside', Laird Barron, Ambrose Bierce, ghosts, and a strong feeling of dreadful otherness...

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are dark literary works that truly transcend genre. I was amazed by how well they've held up--they hardly seem dated at all.

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pair of solid stories about cosmic horror.

William Sloane was best known as an editor and publisher, but towards the beginning of his career, in the 1930s, he published two novels, rooted in Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but pushing beyond the generic conventions. There are obvious similarities between the two; indeed, it's not unfair to seem them as remixes of each other.

Both stories are told from the perspective of the protagonist's friend--it's Nick telling the story, not Jay Gatsby. Both narrators admit to themselves that they are, if not pusillanimous, then very cautious. In both cases, their good friend is a genius, who is drawn by a woman of mysterious background into events that show the puniness of our human world. Both end with the Gatsby character dead, the window to the wider universe (momentarily) closed, and domestic order mostly re-established.

The first of these stories, "To Walk the Night," builds suspense better, in my opinion, than the second--but the pay-off is not as good. It is framed conventionally, for stories of the time, a recounting of some past event, the witness describing it to a man of impeccable scientific reasoning ability who, in the end, is stumped, scientific rationalizations unequipped to deal with the story. This conceit seems a bit old-fashioned, but Sloane handles it well, using the discussion between the two narrators to break up the narrative, allowing them to push and probe a bit, and foreshadow events to come.

(It is worth noting that Stephen King wrote the introduction to these novels; he said he liked the second one best. I do not know King's history with the stories, but structurally "To Walk the Night" is very similar to "From a Buick 8"--King's story is framed the same way, with a story told to pass on a secret about a cosmic horror. The ending of that book, though, is cheap beyond words.)

There are other crotchets that remind the reader of the story's vintage. It is annoying to hear the president of Princeton continually referred to as "Prexy." The female characters are never fully realized.

But these are minor offenses, and the story can be read more easily today than most of the "Weird Tales"-esque stories. Sloane is a good stylist. The narrative is solidly structured. He doles out new bits of information at just the right pace to increase the intrigue, without ever seeming to withold it just for the sake of creating mystery.

At the heart of the story is a Princeton astronomer who mysteriously self-combusts in his observatory--and his equally mysterious recent wedding to an odd woman know on can quite figure out. There are elements of H. Rider Haggard's "She," here, but the story is not breathless. Nor is it overly wrought in the way of Lovecraft. As King points out in the introduction, Sloane successfully combines science fiction and mystery--the genre conventions were just hardening at this time, making the fluidity more imaginable, but, I would think, harder to publish--and ultimately leading to a glimpse of the cosmic realm that dwarfs our human perceptions.

In this case, the culprit is a disembodied mind--from another planet or dimension is never specified--that can wink into our world and take over a human body, possess it. The intelligence is vast, the power immense, but it is also shaken to learn that there are pleasures that can only be experienced in the span of a human life.

The second story, "The Edge of Running Water," similarly blends mystery, science fiction, and horror. Here there is a mad scientist type (and his spiritualist sidekick) who is trying to build a machine that will allow him to talk to the dead--in the gothic surroundings of Maine, where the people are cramped: scheming Yankee peddlers, but with mean souls, not expansive con men. (Again, one wonders when King came across these stories.) There is a defined subplot here, the narrator falling in love with the protagonists' kid sister. (There's a hint of Robert Spencer Carr's later work here, the melodrama giving realism to the outrageous parts of the story, though Sloane is much more competent than Carr: if he kept at it, he could have broken into the Post much earlier than Carr did.)

For my money, the suspense in this second novel does not build as well as the first; there are lots of forebodings, but fewer pay-offs. Instead, Sloane is forced to circle around his point several times, which leads to repetition rather than increasing dread. The story, though, is similarly well constructed, the characters mostly believable (the men more than the women), and Sloane is comfortable letting in some air, some hints at real life: it is not all horror, all weirdness. Indeed, it is the contrast that makes the weirdness feel genuinely odd--a different strategy than Lovecraft, then, and his ilk, who concentrated on the weirdness, and the language necessary to make it legible to the limited human perceptions.

The climax here is better than in the first book, I think. There's something that seems non-serious about a disembodied mind--it makes me think instantly of a giant brain, floating in the air. What we have here is the mad scientist created what he thought was a radio to the dead, but ended up being a rip in the very fabric of the time-space continuum. True cosmic horror, then. While Sloane's language is never as ornate as Lovecraft and Smith and Derleth, it is still precise, and he captures the horror because of the contrast with everyday life: swimming and flirting and eating and sweeping floors.

The NYRB did well to reprint these.

[James Hold · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whatever you might think of porno movies, you must admit they don't waste time getting to the effing point. TO WALK THE NIGHT, the first story in this set, is not porn nor is it in any hurry to get to the point. In Chapter 1 a man arrives home, talks to the butler, admires the furnishings, watches some fireflies, and goes out onto the porch. In Chapter 2 he flashbacks to when he and a friend went to a football game. (Are you getting excited yet?) Chapter 3 they go to the observatory, find their old professor dead, and talk. Finally they call somebody. Then they talk some more. Chapter 4 the police arrive and they talk. Chapter 5 I don't know what happened because my patience had run out and I marked it DNF.

Honestly, I can appreciate a slow build as much as the next guy but this is tortuous. I know there's some rave reviews saying it's the greatest horror novel ever, but when in the hell does it happen? If you want me to read your book you better grab me in the first two or three pages. I gave up after 60. My loss I'm sure... Maybe.

There's a second book here, THE EDGE OF RUNNING WATER, but after this I don't care. I have plenty of other things on my to-read list than to wade this swamp.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

First novel was better than the second, which felt too similar. Not for people who are quick to whine about outdated and problematic tropes lol. These books are from the 30s and have a strong running theme of "brilliant men will always be ruined by Strong Independent Women." Great to bring to the incel book club, or give as a gift to a girl you're hoping will dump you, tell her it's your favorite book of all time and her bags will be packed by the end of the week.

[Tricia Gadd · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not really "cosmic horror" so much as a "who-dun-it" with a sci-fi theme. The stories are a whole lot of fun to read, but pretty forgettable.

[Marc Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable book

I picked this up on a whim after reading an intriguing description on the NYRB site. While it was described in rather glowing terms, I was still expecting somewhat turgid and dated prose surrounding interesting but thin ideas. I was completely wrong.

Both novels are intellectually lively, posing questions far ahead of most fantastic fiction from the era. Also, Sloane clearly feels no obligation to follow genre conventions or audience expectations; he doesn't even feel any obligation to clear up the mysteries he sets up.

There are some clunky bits, primarily products of the era. The male, white, upper-class, well-educated protagonists are casually chauvinistic, but to his credit, the leading women are also strong, independent characters who contribute almost equally to the stories.

To go into much detail about the plots would miss the point. These are stories about rational people, and how they react to a suddenly irrational world.