THE BOATS OF THE GLEN CARRIG (1907) – Written by horror legend William Hope Hodgson, whose works The House on the Borderland, The Ghost Pirates and the Thomas Carnacki short stories were all reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.
Though Hodgson’s usually associated with horror, The Boats of the Glen Carrig gets classed as science fiction because its nightmarish creatures seem rooted in science, making them more akin to the Xenomorphs in Alien than to the undead buccaneers in The Ghost Pirates or the cosmic supernatural entities of The House on the Borderland.
In 1757 the story’s main character, John Winterstraw, is telling his son James Winterstraw about the horrific adventure that brought John together with the boy’s mother. (How I Met Your Mother: The Prequel Series) John and other sailors were on board the Glen Carrig when it struck a rock near the surface of the waters and sank.
All hands evacuated in the lifeboats but were soon mired in a mass of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea. Their troubles were just beginning, as mutated life-forms began to assault them. Continue reading
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