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Stories:

I was sixteen years old when I first encountered THE NIGHT LAND, in a new paperback edition published by Ballantine Books. I had already read a number of books from Ballantine's "Sign of the Unicorn" Fantasy series, which reprinted the best of the pre-Tolkien fantasy writers such as Lord Dunsany, William Morris, and Mervyn Peake. Despite Hodgson's archaic style and Victorian romanticism, I was fascinated by the story. About ten years ago, frustrated that so few people had even heard of the book, I got the idea to rewrite it, to try to make it more accessible to the average reader. Various commitments prevented me from doing so until this past year. It was one of the most difficult things I've attempted, since I had to add dialogue (Hodgson used none) and illuminate motives and characterization. Fortunately, it was a labor of love. By the time I finished, I had distilled Hodgson's 200,000 plus words down to about 105,000. The Night Land is science fiction, fantasy, and most of all, one of the great romances of all time. It should not be forgotten.