I am a watchdog. My name is Snuff. I live with my master Jack outside of London now. I like Soho very much at night with its smelly fogs and dark streets. It is silent then and we go for long walks. Jack is under a curse from a long time ago and must do much of his work at night to keep worse things from happening. I keep watch while he is about it. If someone comes, I howl.

And so begins A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny, a book I have read every October since I first spied it sitting on a low shelf of the Waldenbooks at the Ocean County Mall.

That was in 1994. (more…)