This novel traces the journeys of Abdul Alhazred, mad poet of Yemen and author of the infamous Necronomicon, across the Arabian wasteland known as the Empty Space, among the ancient cities, lost tombs and secret cults of Egypt, to the fabled ruins of Babylon and the ziggurats on the plains of Persia.

The need to tell the story of Alhazred's tragic and eventful early life, in his own words, arose after I wrote my version of his forbidden book. In re-creating the book I came to know its author much more fully than I had anticipated at the start of the work. Alhazred wrote his Necronomicon when he was an old man living at Damascus, but he experienced the events it relates while still a young man, full of dreams and hopes for the future. It is his young voice that takes us with him on his epic journey across the ancient Islamic world.

In the novel we learn why Alhazred went mad, and how he regained his sanity in the pink sands of the Empty Space, along with the strength to press onward. We learn how he became ghoul of the desert, and later the unwilling servant of Nyarlathotep, who enlists him as a spy and compels him to gather information in the very halls of his enemies.

This novel may very well be unique, in that it traces the incidents described in my Necronomicon, but from a different point of view, the eyes of Alhazred as a young man. I don't know of any other writer who has written two parallel works that support and compliment each other in quite the same way.

Readers of my Necronomicon who may have wished to learn more about Alhazred and about the places he visits on his wanderings will find it here in great detail. The novel is more than twice the size of the book on which it was based. In it I was able to be much more detailed in describing matters that may only have been touched on in passing in the Necronomicon.

It would be accurate to describe the character of Alhazred as an anti-hero. He is not the kind of young man that mothers would wish their boys to emulate. He commits theft, assault, and even murder with no remorse. Indeed, after his horrifying ordeal at the hands of the King of Yemen, and his abandonment in the depths of the Empty Space, Alhazred ceases to even think of himself as human. He is adopted by a clan of ghouls and learns the ways of their kind, hunting as they hunt, feeding as they feed. When he sets out on his own to explore the world, he is more ghoul than man. Nor would his intimate union with a familiar spirit, who inhabits his body and becomes his lover, endear him to those with strong religious leanings.

He is an outcast, a leper, a pariah, shunned and persecuted by his fellow men, treated with contempt by the servants of Nyarlathotep. Yet in spite of what might be termed his deficiencies of character, he is a curiously sympathetic figure. He has an indomitable will to prevail over his difficulties. He never gives up, no matter what forces are arrayed against him, but relies on his cunning to prevail against his enemies, who dog his steps across the face of the world. At times his endurance appears almost inhuman, leading us to suspect that the whispered tales told about his mother lying with a djinn of the desert nine months before his birth were not without foundation.

Only an extraordinary man could have written the extraordinary book that is the Necronomicon. Having the opportunity to give life to Alhazred was the kind of joy that a writer experiences only a few times in his career, if he is fortunate. Alhazred spoke through me, and I merely acted as his instrument in setting down his story.

Those who read this novel and would like more background on the life and times of Alhazred will find it in my version of the Necronomicon. The two books are designed to stand alone, but each adds richness and depth to the other, and it is my wish that readers enjoy them together. Along with my Necronomicon Tarot they form a trilogy of works about Alhazred and his infamous book.

ISBN:0-7387-0892-5. Price: $24.95 US. Llewellyn, 2006.