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Summary: The most chilling book I've ever read, unforgetable.
Review: A haunting and unforgetable story of deep, dark horror. Not your cheap, "blood and guts" hollywood horror, but real "you won't sleep" cosmic horror. A 2 part story of a man struggling against the horrors that lie outside his fortified house (the pig-men from the bowls of the earth) and the horrors that lie outside his fortified mind (the timeless, cosmic insignificance of life).Much of the story relies on your imagination, with the threats and horror lurking millimeters from the written text, those readers blessed (cursed?) with a soul will never forget the fear that Hodgson implants. Don't let the reviewers who don't understand the significance of the cosmic unravelling put you off, the "sci-fi" bit doesn't spoil the story, it's part 2 of the whole meaning of horror. I envy anyone that wasn't horrified by this book, I wish I had their safe ignorant bliss. Ohh, the horror...
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Summary: best book in weird fiction
Review: a man in a house starts to be bothered by some strange beings. he must protect his house, and his sister (who sort of goes in and out of the story). he decides to investigate, and finds that there is more to his house than meets the eye. excellent book. great descriptions, especially of the cosmos and the weird landscape. Hodgson have a way of describing how horrible it is to be utterly helpless while your surrondings are or are changing to something really great, weird and horrible. this is more a story about contact with something outerworldly, than a haunted house story. hodgson's masterpiece.
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Summary: The best of its kind
Review: I award this book 5 stars, not because it is one of the best books ever, but because it is one of the best of its kind. I first read it many years ago, in another edition, and it scared me so much I have never been able to forget it. This book is haunting and troubling. I agree with the reviewer that it is better not to reveal too much of the story; the story must be read and information given bit by bit to make this story effective. But I did have a slightly different interpretation. When I originally read it, I couldn't decide if it was all "real" or if the writer was suffering from a psychotic break. I guess it doesn't matter in terms of a good story. At any rate, anyone who enjoys a really good scarey book should read this one!
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Summary: Seminal Work in the Horror Genre
Review: Is William Hope Hodgson�s �The House on the Borderland� the creepiest, eeriest story ever written? It is sometimes described that way, although I cannot confirm it because I have yet to read every creepy or eerie story ever written. I have read a fair amount of H.P. Lovecraft, some Robert E. Howard, and many modern mass-market horror novels. Hodgson probably ranks somewhere in between those two regions. Written in the early part of the 20th century, this author�s novel is an attempt to blend together horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Unfortunately, Hodgson later died in WWI, forever silencing a splendid talent. Without a doubt, Hodgson influenced later horror and fantasy authors with this jaunt through the spectral reaches of space and time. The story begins when two men make a fishing expedition into the hinterlands of Ireland. Near a tiny hamlet called Kraighten, the two encounter some of the strange local people who speak an unknown language. Further strangeness ensues when they realize that much of this area does not appear on any map. The two men explore the surrounding area, stumbling over an old garden near a yawning abyss. Then they discover the ruins of a large house on an outcropping of rock. While exploring these remains, one of the men discovers a damaged manuscript in the wreckage. Taking the book with them, the two travelers head back to camp, but not before experiencing some serious reservations about the area. A bubbling lake nearby scares them, as does unsettling sounds coming from somewhere in the vicinity. After hightailing it back to camp, they begin to read this mysterious journal. What follows constitutes the bulk of Hodgson�s book, a deeply disturbing tale about an anonymous man who lived in the house and who experienced a series of events unexplainable by any rational means of discourse. Some years before, this man lived in the house with his loyal dog and his spinster sister. He was a loner, more interested in spending his time reading books or rambling around his large gardens than throwing parties or hanging out with the local population. One night while lounging in his study, the man undergoes a strange out of body experience. He is transported to another dimension, where he finds an exact replica of his own house on a vast plain surrounded by enormous statues of deities, scary creatures who look like pigs, and a luminous mist of unknown origin. While this might be enough to scare any sane person out of his or her wits, our man continues to stay in the house after his astral experience. More eeriness ensues: the nasty pig creatures crawl out of the abyss forming near the house and attempt to invade the premises. Closely following this horror is an inexplicable episode, which makes up most of the book, where the owner of the house experiences a breakdown of the very fabric of space and time. Hodgson writes about these events in minute detail, outlining every aspect of this fabulous trip beyond the limits of sensory perception. �The House on the Borderland� ends with no fixed answers about the creepy manuscript. Moreover, the author makes sure to have the manuscript trail off in the middle of a horrible event, leaving the reader guessing as to the conclusions of this strange tale. It is not difficult to see how this story influenced several big names in the horror business. Lovecraft definitely borrowed some of the themes here to create his Cthulhu mythos. The detached method of having the horrors told to us through a strange manuscript also finds expression in several other supernatural tales written well after Hodgson�s book. In this respect, �House on the Borderland� is a groundbreaking work worthy of continued reprinting. Any fan of Lovecraft, Blackwood, or any of the other godfathers of horror needs to read this book if for no other reason than to get a glimpse into where their favorite authors cribbed ideas from. This tale is not as scary as certain better known horror stories, but it does occasionally deliver some effective shocks to even the most jaded horror aficionado. One of the book�s failings was the author�s attempts to depict the breakdown of time. This section reminded me of H.G. Wells. Moreover, this part of the story seemed to run on forever. I wanted the story to get back to the scariness of otherworldly beings and supernatural horrors. Hodgson�s book is a necessary read. Do not go in expecting straight horror, but acknowledge that you are about to read a great mix of several genres. Without William Hope Hodgson, who knows where the horror novel would be today.
Rating: 
Summary: okay, but not THAT good
Review: it's alright, but a little hokey and dated, and i don't know what book most of the other reviewers on this page read. two young men find a manuscript in the ruins of a castle about a guy shooting white pigs out his window. wow. talk about "cosmic dread" and "icy terror". there was nothing spectacular or even slightly memorable about this book, except the beginning. the reason everyone gives such verbose praise to this thoroughly forgettable, antiquated novel is that lovecraft said a few good words about it. but let's remember our friendly neighborhood sheep, he was a man of his times, and i seriously doubt that if he was alive he would have such lavish praise for this novel now. lovecraft's material dated well (except for the racism), so did blackwood's (aside from the pantheism), so did lefanu and bierce's:hodgson's most certainly did not. skip it and read something by arthur machen or thomas ligotti.
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Summary: fascinating horror story
Review: The fantastic visionary horror about a human fear and despair. A creatures from an other dimensions attacking the narrator's house, which stands lonely in desolate gardens, the witness of the end of our solar system, the way into a strange assembly of old and forgotten heathen Gods in a arena in the midst a great mountains, horrible steps of something invisible heard by nights, a dark basements and endless abyss below the house (perhaps opening to another worlds - the all is written out with the most amazing imaginary. Especially the journey of the main figure through the billions of the centuries into the future by an accelerating of the time is something absolutely original and inimitable. I have read a lot of the books but I never have met so the wonderful one as "The house on the borderland" is. I dare to say, that Mr. Hodgson is (despite of his rather worse and jerky style) more better and more creatvive than for example Lovercraft, Blackwood or C.A. Smith, but it's only my subjective opinion. What a shame that he was killed in the World War I. He could have proved much more.
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Summary: Classic Thought-Provoking Fiction
Review: They found the pit by accident, and by it the ruins of a house. In the ruins they found a manuscript, the journal of a man who had, presumably, lived on that site. They read the journal, seeking to find out what horrors had occurred there. He had been surprised to purchase the house so easily. Huge, spacious, and elegant, it seemed a dream. It became his nightmare. It began with a dream, a flight through the darkness that revealed incomprehensible secrets. Then there came the discovery of the pig-like men. Loud and inhuman, they appeared in the real world much like they had in his dreams. They stalked the house, and its inhabitants. They came from the pit that yawned beside the house, and his attempt to find their source would set in motion an unstoppable chain of events that would leave nothing in his world unscathed. Originally written in the early 1900's, THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is a novel that, in its own quiet way, challenges both the reader's intellect and beliefs. Though Hodgson intended the book to make his reader think about such concepts as heaven, hell, time and death, he also intended it to be a plain good read. While the ending does nothing to resolve the mystery of the House itself, the journey itself is well-worth the time it takes. The book contains an introduction written by Jane Gallion
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Summary: Pigmen from beyond.
Review: This is a review of the illustrated graphic novel adaptation of the HODGSON novel. Definitely unsettling, this mature comic is dark and gothic just like a LOVECRAFT story or HAMMER film. The artwork is creepy and original and paints the gloomy picture the original book intended. A good, quick way to digest a visual work of literature about a place somewhere between good and evil that keeps the reader on the edge of eerie dread.
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Summary: Why isn't this book more popular? A damn unsettling yarn...
Review: This novel derives most of its genuinely creepy effect from all of the unanswered questions that will flow through your brain for days after you read it...who built that damn house? What exactly is it made out of? How is the "Recluse" able to have visions of the far future just by residing in the mansion? Does somebody (or some thing) WANT the protagonist to have these visions? If so, why? What is the significance of the violent, besieging swine-men and how can they exist in the "real world" of the 1900s and billions of years in the future (when the Earth is a frozen and dead sphere in a darkened solar system) at the same time? Who (or what?) created the swine-men? What do the gigantic statues of the ancient and evil mythological gods of Earth legend (Set, Kali, etc.) glimpsed in the "amphitheatre" have to do with the story? Hodgson (to his credit and to incredible effect) never gives the reader obvious answers to these questions in this skillfully crafted tale of terror that makes full use of mankind's fear of the unknown. To be sure, Hodgson knew all of the answers, but he wanted us to have fun (for the rest of our lives, no doubt) trying to figure out exactly what he was getting at. Hodgson was an author of startling originality, and "House..." is far more frightening than any other work penned by any of his contemporaries (Stoker, Wells, James, and numerous others) and it's easy to see why Lovecraft admired him so much...so why don't more horror and sci-fi fans know who he is? I'm clueless, so somebody please fill me in. Lovecraft fans will no doubt notice that Hodgson's "Universal Sun" (as seen in the terrifying visions of the Recluse, as it sends forth "messengers" into the void after all of creation has been destroyed) is the obvious prototype of HPL's Azathoth. This novel left me eagerly looking forward to reading more Hodgson books ("Nightland", "Boats of the Glen Carrig", others). It's a damn shame that he was killed in the First World War, because he would have certainly cranked out more ground-breaking horror classics.
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Summary: One of the best otherworldly and weird books ever written
Review: When I first read this novel I thought that the author had been heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. Then I looked up the original date of publication (1908), which is several decades before Lovecraft published. I wouldn't hesitate to call this one of the best otherworldly and weird books ever written. It is not graphic blood and guts splatter- Edwardian gentlemen did not write such [stuff]. This is better, besides the psychological terror that builds, you have cosmically mind boggling themes of infinate time and space- and the world beyond this world, of which ours is but a pale inferior shadow.
I often wonder just who William Hope Hodgeson was. He was plainly a man of action, that much is clear from his battle with the pig demons, but he was also something more. I wonder what forgotten corner of the Empire he picked up his knowlege of things cosmic and beyond the veil....
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