The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror (New York Review Books Classics)

I thoroughly enjoyed the two novels that are presented within this single volume. Though both novels were published in the 1930's, there is no shortage of character development or intrigue to provide innovative and engrossing scenarios for today's readers. In "To Walk the Night," a college professor dies under mysterious circumstances. The late professor's wife appears, seemingly out of nowhere, to charm an old friend of the professor and to sweep him off his feet. Something is not quite right, however, and the ensuing story is both captivating and ominous."The Edge of Running Water" involves a scientist's experimental quest to communicate with the dead. The story revolves around the characters that accompany the scientist in his old and isolated house on the water. The remoteness of the location brings a sense of dread to the atmosphere, and the surrounding townspeople pose a threatening hint of unease to the outsiders. The experiment itself is disquieting in nature, and distrust between some the characters brings high tensionBoth of these stories work well due to the lack of genre restrictions. Both contain elements of horror, mystery and science fiction. The characters are relatable, and the writing keeps the movement within both novels flowing well and smoothly. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an immersive and imaginative reading experience.

Excellent works, both with noir hints amid science and suspense. Sloane's writing is clear, the characters are well-developed, and while the plot is telegraphed throughout both novels one is still compelled to read to the end. Highly recommended for those who enjoy Lovecraft-style storytelling.

The Rim of Morning is actually made up of two novels that William Sloan wrote in the late 1930's: To Walk The Night in 1937 and The Edge of Running Water in 1939. Part mystery, part horror, part science fiction; however one wants to classify these novels, they are brilliantly told page−turners.To Walk The Night is the story of two childhood friends returning to their college alma mater for a football game, that get caught up in the mysterious death of a college professor, when they, on the spur of the moment, decide to visit him at his laboratory. When the mysterious, illusive widow of the professor enters the story, the reader senses that whatever happened to the professor, the answer will lie far outside the realm of the ordinary.The Edge of Running Water is the story of a brilliant physicist driven mad with grief from the loss of his beloved wife. Desperate to devise a way to contact her using his scientific knowledge he builds a machine to try and do just that− but some things are best left alone.In both of these novels, Sloan is masterful at building an atmosphere of suspense and dread that pulls the reader along, suspecting, but never fulling realizing, what the final outcome will be for those caught up in the bazaar circumstances of these stories.If you are looking for a Halloween read, it is hard to imagine a better one. Highly recommended.

I probably shouldn't have looked at the other reviews but obviously I did !I can't comprehend all the 4 and 5 star reviews .The Rim of Morning is an assemblage of two novels,To Walk the Night and In the Edge of Running Water.They are both enjoyable genre novels of little substance .Sloane is no Patricia Highsmith !The mystery genre element predominates in both novels with dollops of sci-fi and horror that is vaguely Lovecraftian.To Walk the Night never fails to intrigue but it's resolution is preposterous.To give Sloane his due he is rather precise in depicting the social milieu here.Everyone of importance is an educated upper middle class WASP.At least that gives the book a sense of place and time.The problem is the Lovecraftian resolution is parachuted in.Sure you guessed part of it early on but the other part- no way !It just pops out at the end.I think In the Edge of Running Water is the better novel but it is really marred by the progression of the last 10 % of the book. Sloane insists on introducing a mystery sub plot just as the novel should be ending.This subplot adds nothing.You do get to know the townsfolk better and to be honest , who wants too!They are a crew of malevolent , cretinous rustics of such a base nature that even though the novel is set in Maine ,you half expect someone to start playing a banjo and say - squeal like a pig ! They are just too creepy and jerky.Villagers in Frankenstein movies are more dignified.Also I never really bought the idea that Sayles , a lead character is really a psychology professor and sweet young thing Ann is a creature of no substance.Not bad books but if you were looking for some first rate horror fiction by a writer you've never heard of , don't look here !

I have heard people use the phrase "the New Weird" to describe recent fiction that straddles the boundaries between horror, science fiction and fantasy. The two novels collected in this e-book fit that definition, though they date back to the 1930s. The stories are both horror in their effect on the reader, but both rely on science fictional, rather than supernatural, plot elements, and both have a bit of detective story thrown in as well.Sloane was an elegant, literate writer: these two works are the only novels he ever wrote, but he spent the bulk of his his career as an editor and publisher of non-genre literary fiction. He avoids the purple prose, cardboard characterization and clumsy plotting that characterized most 1930s SF and horror, but his stories are ultimately as terrifying as anything H.P. Lovecraft ever wrote. And Sloane's blending of genres keeps the reader guessing as to exactly what is going on.Of the two novels here, "The Edge of Running Water" is slightly better than "To Walk the Night," but both are very good reads, even today. Sloane may not be remembered much by fans of genre fiction, but these two novels deserve to be rediscovered.

This is a book containing two novels by William Sloane. The first one is fantastic, the second merely very good. They would both fall under the weird fiction category. Both stories have a very eerie quality to them that is hard to pin down; very atmospheric, and Sloane paces them perfectly. It's a shame he didn't write more like these. Highly recommended.

I might be a victim of modern sensationalism and quick rewards. But the stories are frankly not scary, and take way too long to develop just because it tries to give a sense of something being definitely mundane, yet a bit off, so we're gonna make a big deal out of it.The writing style is good but this is as much credit as I can give the author. The topics aren't very original or wonderful in any sense, and the ending doesn't make you wish to know what happened to the protagonists afterwards.