Hippocampus Press, $20.00, ISBN 978-1-61498-442-9
Horror, 2024 (Reissue)
If you ever wanted a book to single-handedly convince you never to set foot on a boat again, look no further than The Voice in the Night, a collection of William Hope Hodgson’s short stories wrangled together by the esteemed Lovecraftian scholar ST Joshi.
The cover is deliciously eerie, dripping with menace… and, oh yeah, it completely spoils the title story. Seriously, it’s like watching The Sixth Sense with “Bruce Willis Is Dead” written in big, bold letters on the DVD case. But hey, publishing decisions are mysterious and unknowable—much like the horrors lurking beneath Mr Hodgson’s briny depths.
And what a way to kick off the collection. The Voice in the Night (which you now already know the twist to, thanks cover designer!) is a tight, unsettling tale of sailors encountering a mysterious figure on a boat who, instead of just asking for a cup of sugar like a normal neighbor, unloads a nightmarish body horror confessional that is as disturbing as it is tragically poignant. Mr Hodgson was firing on all cylinders here—this is the kind of story that burrows into your brain and refuses to leave, much like the mold that burrowed into the unfortunate protagonist.
Then there’s The Goddess of Death, a story that could only be written in 1904, because if someone tried publishing this today, they’d be trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. The plot: British soldiers kill a bunch of Kali worshipers, steal their statue, and bring it back to England. Then, a mysterious force starts picking off the colonialists one by one. It’s less horror, more Hardy Boys: Imperialist Edition, and while it has some pulpy thrills, following The Voice in the Night makes it feel like the literary equivalent of going from Alien to an episode of Scooby-Doo.
Next up: A Tropical Horror, in which a ship squares off against a monster eel. Now we’re talking! Action, suspense, and Mr Hodgson’s unparalleled ability to make the ocean feel like a nightmare realm of unending doom. The only downside is an unnecessary log extract tacked on at the end to reassure readers that the protagonist lived. Boring! Leave it ambiguous! Leave us hanging in suspense!
Speaking of suffering, From the Tideless Sea is a prime example of why you should never, ever, ever get on a boat. A ship is stranded in the Sargasso Sea, and the story is a relentless descent into despair. Hodgson doesn’t just want to scare you—he wants you to feel the terror in your bones. The kind of story that makes you look at a puddle on the sidewalk and think, “Nope, too much water.”
In The Mystery of the Derelict, a crew stumbles upon a ghost ship in the Sargasso Sea (again—honestly, sailors, just avoid this place). They decide, as all horror protagonists do, that exploring it is a fantastic idea. Surprise! Big, terrifying rats! If you weren’t already scared of the ocean, now you can be scared of rats and the ocean.
Then comes The Derelict, which is basically The Mystery of the Derelict but with extra body horror. Another ship, another eerie wreck, but this time the terror isn’t oversized rodents—it’s the ship itself, which has a sinister, sentient cargo. You can practically hear John Carpenter taking notes for The Thing.
Ah, The Albatross. A brave sailor answers an SOS from a ship being tormented by, you guessed it, rats. At this point, the reader is starting to develop a full-blown case of thalassophobia. Mr Hodgson is like Steven Spielberg in Jaws, except instead of making people afraid of sharks, he’s making them afraid of literally everything that floats.
By the time we get to On the Bridge, where a ship navigates icebergs in a harrowing near-catastrophe, we’re practically begging Mr Hodgson to write about a nice cottage on land. Maybe a story about a friendly dog. But no, it’s more doom, more suspense, and more reasons to book a landlocked vacation.
The Thing in the Weeds returns to the Sargasso Sea, with a ship encountering a suspiciously thick patch of weeds that, surprise, are actually tentacles. Why is anyone sailing in this ocean? Why do people keep doing this? Just stay home!
Then we have The Finding of the Graiken, which is the closest this collection gets to a love story. A man mutinies to rescue his lost sweetheart from a vanished ship, and you wait for the inevitable horror twist—maybe she’s a fungus monster now? Maybe she’s been fused to the ship? Nope, it’s a straightforward, earnest romance amidst the maritime madness. Mr Hodgson, you softie.
However, don’t get too comfortable, because The Stone Ship brings us back to pure chaos. An earthquake unleashes eldritch horrors on an unsuspecting crew, because of course it does.
Meanwhile, The Haunted Pampero is sadly not about a cute cat named Pampero having a birthday party. No, it’s about a cursed ship guest bringing doom and death. Honestly, at this point, we should just assume that every character who steps on a ship is doomed.
Demons of the Sea. More tentacles, more terror, more of William Hope Hodgson whispering, “Never go near water!” into your ear.
Rounding out the collection are two Thomas Carnacki stories: The Whistling Room and The Hog. Go check out the review of Carnacki the Ghost-Finder if you are interested to know more about them.
The biggest issue with this collection is that the stories start blending together after a while. Taken individually, they’re brilliant—tense, atmospheric, and dripping with dread. Read them all back-to-back, though, and it starts to feel like Mr Hodgson was just copy-pasting “creepy ship scenario” over and over again to pay the bills. If you’re not careful, the true horror isn’t the ghost ships or monster eels—it’s the creeping realization that you can’t tell one doomed vessel from another.
Still, as a curated selection of William Hope Hodgson’s best nautical horror, this collection is undeniably worth owning. Just space the stories out, lest you start seeing tentacles in your bathtub. And for the love of all things holy, don’t book a cruise anytime soon.
