The Night Land: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Night Land, credited to William Hope Hodgson, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. Read in English by Mark Nelson The Sun has gone out and the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, nearly eight miles high – the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of Energy, known as the "air clog", powered from a subterranean energy source called the "Earth Current". For millennia, vast living shapes—the Watchers—have waited in the darkness near the pyramid. It is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle's power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human. To leave the protection of the Circle means almost certain death, or worse an ultimate destruction of the soul. As the story commences, the narrator establishes mind contact with an inhabitant of another, forgotten Lesser Redoubt. First one expedition sets off to succor the inhabitants of the Lesser Redoubt, whose own Earth Current has been exhausted, only to meet with disaster. After that the narrator sets off alone into the darkness to find the girl he has made contact with, knowing now that she is the reincarnation of his past love. H. P. Lovecraft describes the novel as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written". Clark Ashton Smith wrote of it that "In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. - Summary by Wikipedia

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Night Land
• Author credits: William Hope Hodgson
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 32
• Listed recording duration: 18:54:04

Catalogue topics

• fantasy
• Hodgson

Opening tracks: first 24 of 32

1. 01 - Chapter I - Mirthdath the Beautiful — 45:34
2. 02 - Chapter II - The Last Redoubt — 38:01
3. 03 - Chapter III - The Quiet Calling — 39:22
4. 04 - Chapter IV - The Hushing of the Voice, Part 1 — 33:11
5. 05 - Chapter IV - The Hushing of the Voice, Part 2 — 34:39
6. 06 - Chapter V - Into the Night Land — 30:02
7. 07 - Chapter VI - The Way That I Did Go — 28:21
8. 08 - Chapter VII - The Night Land, Part 1 — 46:49
9. 09 - Chapter VII - The Night Land, Part 2 — 44:25
10. 10 - Chapter VII - The Night Land, Part 3 — 43:10
11. 11 - Chapter VIII - Down the Mighty Slope — 42:49
12. 12 - Chapter IX - The Dark Pyramid, Part 1 — 25:15
13. 13 - Chapter IX - The Dark Pyramid, Part 2 — 42:46
14. 14 - Chapter IX - The Dark Pyramid, Part 3 — 38:51
15. 15 - Chapter X - The Maid of the Olden Days, Part 1 — 28:13
16. 16 - Chapter X - The Maid of the Olden Days, Part 2 — 38:49
17. 17 - Chapter XI - The Homeward Way, Part 1 — 35:09
18. 18 - Chapter XI - The Homeward Way, Part 2 — 35:05
19. 19 - Chapter XII - Downward of the Gorge, Part 1 — 34:31
20. 20 - Chapter XII - Downward of the Gorge, Part 2 — 37:04
21. 21 - Chapter XII - Downward of the Gorge, Part 3 — 38:28
22. 22 - Chapter XIII - Homeward by the Shore, Part 1 — 34:08
23. 23 - Chapter XIII - Homeward by the Shore, Part 2 — 39:10
24. 24 - Chapter XIII - Homeward by the Shore, Part 3 — 40:30

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.