The Rim of Morning

Starred review from September 7, 2015
As the editor of two SF anthologies and director of Rutgers University Press, Sloane would easily have made a name for himself in the speculative fiction world even if he had not written these two tremendous novels. Reprinted for the first time in years, “To Walk the Night” and “The Edge of Running Water” blend SF and horror in a manner wholly unheard of when they were originally published in the 1930s. In “To Walk the Night,” two inseparable friends discover an impossible murder and are slowly drawn into its mystery, which threatens to consume their lives as well. In “The Edge of Running Water,” a genius electrophysicist attempts to pierce the barrier between life and death, with disastrous consequences. Sloane’s eerie, exquisitely descriptive prose is influenced by Gothic literature as well as contemporary scientific theory. Sloane is the product of his time, of course, and he uses some outdated terms for people with learning disabilities (as does Stephen King, bafflingly and willingly enough, in his introduction), but his work is still impressively well executed. These all-but-forgotten texts make excellent reading for any fan of classic SF or eldritch horror.