Ever since coming across this while doing some browsing a long way back, I've always been curious about what these stories are about, as after all the book states them as "tales of cosmic horror". Eventually I would finally get a copy of this a while back, and now that I've read I was really impressed!
So this is a collection of two novels that he wrote in the thirties, and the only ones that he did in his writing career. The first book is called "To Walk the Night", that follows former university students who visit a professor of astronomy that they know, only to find him consumed by fire in his lab, and also a woman of uncanny beauty in his house. But this does not compare to the revelation that they will eventually find in the Arizona desert.
The second one is "The Edge of Running Water", where a scientist named Julian Blair retires himself in a remote Maine town after the death of his wife, where his new experiments are about to shake up the town, and also the universe itself.
This is some really good cosmic horror indeed! Maybe not in the sense of Lovecraft, but it is certainly great to begin with! Leans a bit more to SF with also some closed door murder mystery giving them a bit more flavor.
Sloane's writing is pretty simple, but also literary as well. While there aren't any cosmic monsters, it still deals with man's meddling with things that he doesn't even understand, while also touching on the effects of grief especially in "The Edge of Running Water". Sloane's take on cosmic horror is really interesting, and I'm always in the mood for anything interesting! I'll probably will still be looking for other cosmic horror titles to sink my teeth into, but there's a Dan Simmons novel that is wanting to be read!
by i-the-muso-1968