The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

William Hope Hodgson was an interesting character - he ran away from school at the age of 13 to become a sailor, developed a series of physical exercises to defend himself against older bullies and also become an accomplished photographer on his travels. He was also notable for handcuffing Harry Houdini as part of a show in Blackburn in such a way that the famed escapologist had trouble getting free. 

His writing career drew on his experiences at sea, with stories of ghost pirates and ships adrift in strange waters, and he also created the character of supernatural investigator Carnacki the Ghost Finder (a clear inspiration for Scooby Doo).

The House on the Borderland was his second published work. In a similar vein to works by Arthur Machen and Robert W Chambers, this is another example of an early weird tale that would prove to be influential on later authors such as HP Lovecraft. The book opens with a framing story of two young men on a fishing holiday in a remote part of Ireland who stumble upon the ruins of an old house and a curious manuscript. 

Said manuscript relates the tale of a reclusive narrator, who had lived in the house accompanied only by his sister and his pet dog. The story becomes dreamlike, with reality shifting and the narrator finding himself in a much larger and more alien replica of his house, under attack from weird swine like creatures. This forms a relatively action packed sequence where he is barricading the house and picking off the intruders with a selection of firearms accompanied by his trusty hound Pepper. After the attack, he investigates a mysterious pit, seemingly the source of the attackers, that then fills with water to form a strange lake.

The narrative shifts again, with the man imagining himself projected far into the future (in a sequence reminiscent of The Time Machine by HG Wells) with the sun wheeling overhead in a blur while everything around him turns to dust. Eventually he witnesses the death of the solar system before somehow returning to his present time (whenever that is)

The book closes with a final horrific twist, in a short but gruesome chapter where the narrator succumbs to some sort of glowing, fungal infection in an effective bit of body horror. 

I enjoyed this book, although the plot is disjointed and inconsistent, there are some remarkable bits of imagery, particularly during the future sequences. I found it slightly irksome that the only female character (the narrator's sister) is silent and plays very little part in the story.