During the 1800s, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Shelley, and Bram Stoker all created iconic literary characters. The newspapers were covering sensational murderers such as Jack the Ripper and "Burke and Hare" who killed to sell the bodies to anatomists. Roger Zelazny's last novel, A Night in the Lonesome October, is a whimsical tribute to these roots of the horror and detective genres. For obvious reasons, it's the perfect October read. When the full moon shines on Halloween night it's possible to open a gateway to the elder gods (Cthulu and friends). Clearly the Closers (those who don't want this to happen) have been successful so far but once again all manner of odd individuals are assembling to determine the fate of the world. Each player has an animal familiar who understands all that is said and done, although they can't speak to people until the event begins on Halloween Night.

Snuff is Jack's faithful watchdog and our narrator. Each chapter represents one day in October, vaguely set in the Victorian era of London. There is Crazy Jill, the witch, with Graymalk the cat. The Count is there with Needles the bat. There is the Good Doctor with his experimental man and Bubo the rat. Some of the others are the Mad Russian, the Druid, the Vicar, Morris & McCabe (I contend that they represent Burke & Hare), and Larry Talbot who is possibly his own companion. Since building their power structures involves a lot of grave robbing and murder the odd group even attracts the attention of the Great Detective. 

There is nothing subtle or complicated about Lonesome October. Its a light entertaining read with spare but witty dialog that seems completely believable for dogs and cats etc. More adjectives would just be a waste in a story where the characters are all familiar from other books and movies. Overall, Lonesome October is one of my all time favorites as it apparently was of Zelazny himself. He recorded the original audio book and reviews say he seemed to be having a great time! This one is definitely kid friendly, and even has cartoonish drawings by Gahan Wilson in each chapter.

The one down side is that the book is only available in paperback at this time, at least they finally got around to republishing it a couple of times. The audio book read by Zelazny was available on CD and can probably be found on Ebay. Its definitely worth it if you can get hold of it in either form.

Roger Zelazny is best known for the Chronicles of Amber, a groundbreaking (in the late 70's) alternate universe fantasy series. The book Lord of Light was the movie the Navy Seals claimed to be filming when they went undercover in Afghanistan and, thanks to the success of that story, back in production as a movie. A Night in the Lonesome October (1995) was the last work published by Zelazny before his death in 1996.