Book 55: "The House on the Borderland" by William Hope Hodgson

It was undoubtedly a portion of a ruined building; yet now I made out that it was not built upon the edge of the chasm itself, as I had first supposed; but perched almost at the extreme end of a huge spur of rock that jutted out some fifty or sixty feet over the abyss. In fact, the jagged mass of ruin was literally suspended in mid-air.

Two friends on a camping and fishing holiday in the West of Ireland find a battered notebook containing an unbelievable story in the ruins of a house suspended over a chasm, and pass it to William Hope Hodgson to edit and publish.

In the notebook, a past owner of the house describes mystical visions in which he travels vast distances through space and time. He also tells of encounters with the mysterious and possibly non-corporeal swine-creatures that attack his house, which seem to come from the bowels of the earth.

I found this an involving story, but not as exciting as his tales of the sea.

Book 56: "The Ghost Pirates" by William Hope Hodgson

I joined the Mortzestus in 'Frisco. I heard before I signed on, that there were some funny yarns floating round about her; but I was pretty nearly on the beach, and too jolly anxious to get away, to worry about trifles. Besides, by all accounts, she was right enough so far as grub and treatment went. When I asked fellows to give it a name, they generally could not. All they could tell me, was that she was unlucky, and made thundering long passages, and had no more than a fair share of dirty weather. Also, that she had twice had the sticks blown out of her, and her cargo shifted. Besides all these, a heap of other things that might happen to any packet, and would not be comfortable to run into. Still, they were the ordinary things, and I was willing enough to risk thern, to get home. All the same, if I had been given the chance, I should have shipped in some other vessel as a matter of preference.

When the ship Mortzestus takes on a new crew at San Francisco, only one sailor remains from the previous voyage. His crew-mates left without their pay, but Williams is determined to stay long enough to get his pay-packet, even though he claims that the Mortzestus is an unlucky ship with too many shadows.

Jessop is the first of the new crew to notice anything odd, when he sees a shadowy figure climbing over the rails. Events build up slowly at first, and Jessop is not sure who else has noticed what is going on, but one terrifying night things escalate and half the crew, including the Second Mate and even the Skipper, end up climbing the rigging looking for a sailor who has disappeared up above, burning flares and blue-lights (whatever they may be) and hanging lanterns around the ship in an attempt to hold back the danger that lurks in the darkness.

William Hope Hodgson spent ten years at sea, and this story really rings true (except for the ghost pirates obviously). A scary, exciting and moving tale.

Nottingham Round the World Reading Challenge - PACIFIC OCEAN