Instruct: Classify the given Amazon review as either positive or negative.
Query: Perhaps the best tale of the otherworldly ever written

When I first read this novel I thought that the author had been heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. Then I looked up the original date of publication (1908), which is several decades before Lovecraft published. Obviously it was Hodgson that influenced Lovecraft.I wouldn't hesitate to call this one of the best otherworldly and weird books ever written. It is not graphic blood and guts splatter- Edwardian gentlemen did not write such [stuff]. This is something far better. Besides the psychological terror that builds, you have cosmically mind boggling themes of infinate time and space- and the world beyond this world, of which ours is but a pale inferior shadow.I often wonder just who William Hope Hodgeson was. He was plainly a man of action, that much is clear from his battle with the pig demons, but he was also something more. I wonder what forgotten corner of the Empire he picked up his knowlege of things cosmic and beyond the veil....