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The Golden Age of Weird Fiction: Frank Belknap Long
Prepare yourself for macabre spectacle and contes cruel, crawling things and loathsome gods, predators from deep inside the mind of man and from far outside angled space, all brought to you by the incomparable Frank Belknap Long! Included are:
AT THE HOME OF POE (prose poem)
THE EYE ABOVE THE MANTEL
IN THE TOMB OF SEMENSES
THE DESERT LICH
DEATH-WATERS
THE SEA THING
THE WERE-SNAKE
MEN WHO WALK UPON THE AIR
THE DEVIL-GOD
THE OCEAN LEECH
THE DOG-EARED GOD
THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND LEGS
THE SPACE-EATERS
YOU CAN'T KILL A GHOST
THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS
THE RED FETISH
A VISITOR FROM EGYPT
THE HORROR FROM THE HILLS
WHEN CHAUGNAR WAKES (poem)
IN THE LAIR OF THE SPACE MONSTERS
SECOND NIGHT OUT
THE DARK BEASTS
THE GREAT COLD
DARK VISION
THE CREEPER IN DARKNESS
THE ELEMENTAL
AT THE HOME OF POE (prose poem)
THE EYE ABOVE THE MANTEL
IN THE TOMB OF SEMENSES
THE DESERT LICH
DEATH-WATERS
THE SEA THING
THE WERE-SNAKE
MEN WHO WALK UPON THE AIR
THE DEVIL-GOD
THE OCEAN LEECH
THE DOG-EARED GOD
THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND LEGS
THE SPACE-EATERS
YOU CAN'T KILL A GHOST
THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS
THE RED FETISH
A VISITOR FROM EGYPT
THE HORROR FROM THE HILLS
WHEN CHAUGNAR WAKES (poem)
IN THE LAIR OF THE SPACE MONSTERS
SECOND NIGHT OUT
THE DARK BEASTS
THE GREAT COLD
DARK VISION
THE CREEPER IN DARKNESS
THE ELEMENTAL
325 pages, Paperback
Published September 15, 2016
132 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
Frank Belknap Long
432 books100 followersAka Lyda Belknap Long.
Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 23, 2018
I had the pleasure of corresponding with Frank Long towards the end of his life...I wished I still had the many letters we exchanged...
This book is a collection of some of the pulp stories he wrote in the sci-fi and horror vein during the 1930s for various pulp magazines.
For $.55..worth an introduction of one of Lovecraft's circle, with a voice all his own...
Jeff McIntosh
This book is a collection of some of the pulp stories he wrote in the sci-fi and horror vein during the 1930s for various pulp magazines.
For $.55..worth an introduction of one of Lovecraft's circle, with a voice all his own...
Jeff McIntosh
July 8, 2017
Long's life spanned the 20th century (1901-1994). He was one of the "Lovecraft Circle" that largely dominated Weird Tales magazine in the 1920s and '30s – and thus horror fiction in general during the pulp era. His writing interests actually had a wider range than Lovecraft's, including SF, detective thrillers and (under an obvious pseudonym) even romance novels in his later years.
There's a smattering of the Cthulhu mythos here – mostly elements he added to Lovecraft's base – but thankfully not enough to mire the whole collection in snot-coated adjectives. In many of the tales, there are also odd snickers of humor, as though partly through a story he spies something just a little... ridiculous in the plot and takes a moment for self-parody.
Long shines with his descriptions. Far more than Lovecraft, he puts you directly and securely in a place that you can see, feel and taste. Very often, along with the character, it's a place you'd give your spiritual eye teeth to escape. It's partly a matter of simple enumeration of the surroundings, but much more in the filters that his characters' predispositions apply to the perceived world.
This collection covers much of his pulp fantasy through 1939. It may seem that his handle on writing improves throughout the era, but I think it's more that the era itself improved in what was expected, since Long could write in an amazing array of styles, bringing out the adjective-ladle, tossing in the pulp absurdities as required. Only the first story, "The Eye Above the Mantel" goes whole-hog with the "unnamable and indescribable miasmic residue of spastic, odiously repellant, malevolent outer-space cumquattery that turned my eyeballs to slopping cauldrons of muck" (not an actual quote, but you get the idea). This is a favorite of the Lovecraft crowd.
Long shows a propensity for sea tales involving evil octopoids and impossible invaders from other "dimensions," that term holding nothing of its current mathematical sense (though one explanation of dimensional interaction hints of something like quantum entanglement).
His endings often seem abrupt (to me), as though there might well be more to say, but Long has decided that enough is enough. My personal favorite, "The Devil-God," ends with a shock that literally left me gasping out loud. And it wasn't an O. Henry plot trick – it was an emotional sock in the gut, a change in character that seems at first impossible but actually makes a strange, inverted sense.
The lengths range from short-shorts to short novel ("The Horror from the Hills, serialized in Weird Tales). The later stories include the first ones he published in John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Unknown. Campbell was almost single-handedly responsible for upgrading the believability of both SF and fantasy in the '40s and '50s, demanding a more restrained style along with some basic logic to the plot. Here, Long (as noted above) seems a more accomplished writer – certainly one who knew how to tailor his writing to his outlet.
[Obviously, I'm a sucker for these Megapacks.]
There's a smattering of the Cthulhu mythos here – mostly elements he added to Lovecraft's base – but thankfully not enough to mire the whole collection in snot-coated adjectives. In many of the tales, there are also odd snickers of humor, as though partly through a story he spies something just a little... ridiculous in the plot and takes a moment for self-parody.
Long shines with his descriptions. Far more than Lovecraft, he puts you directly and securely in a place that you can see, feel and taste. Very often, along with the character, it's a place you'd give your spiritual eye teeth to escape. It's partly a matter of simple enumeration of the surroundings, but much more in the filters that his characters' predispositions apply to the perceived world.
This collection covers much of his pulp fantasy through 1939. It may seem that his handle on writing improves throughout the era, but I think it's more that the era itself improved in what was expected, since Long could write in an amazing array of styles, bringing out the adjective-ladle, tossing in the pulp absurdities as required. Only the first story, "The Eye Above the Mantel" goes whole-hog with the "unnamable and indescribable miasmic residue of spastic, odiously repellant, malevolent outer-space cumquattery that turned my eyeballs to slopping cauldrons of muck" (not an actual quote, but you get the idea). This is a favorite of the Lovecraft crowd.
Long shows a propensity for sea tales involving evil octopoids and impossible invaders from other "dimensions," that term holding nothing of its current mathematical sense (though one explanation of dimensional interaction hints of something like quantum entanglement).
His endings often seem abrupt (to me), as though there might well be more to say, but Long has decided that enough is enough. My personal favorite, "The Devil-God," ends with a shock that literally left me gasping out loud. And it wasn't an O. Henry plot trick – it was an emotional sock in the gut, a change in character that seems at first impossible but actually makes a strange, inverted sense.
The lengths range from short-shorts to short novel ("The Horror from the Hills, serialized in Weird Tales). The later stories include the first ones he published in John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Unknown. Campbell was almost single-handedly responsible for upgrading the believability of both SF and fantasy in the '40s and '50s, demanding a more restrained style along with some basic logic to the plot. Here, Long (as noted above) seems a more accomplished writer – certainly one who knew how to tailor his writing to his outlet.
[Obviously, I'm a sucker for these Megapacks.]
Read
January 7, 2025PLACEHOLDER REVIEWS:
In "The Red Fetish," two men are stuck on a desert island atoll with no water. They d0n't want to die of dehydration, but it's a 6 mile swim to the next island, supposedly filled with cannibals (and fruit and fresh water springs). And what about the sharks? This is a very pulpy little piece, enjoyable if you don't get too bothered by the inherent racism of the "cannibal savages" concept, and a solid piece of "survival" adventure.
"Men Who Walk Upon The Air" has a starving, itinerant poet agree to a woman's offer of a meal, if he will climb the nearby gibbet and bring down her husband's body. But the poet, after some eating and drinking, presses his luck and asks the wife for a kiss, causing the sudden revenant appearance of her husband's aggressive corpse. A strange story - effective but somewhat confused, where the wife suffers either for acquiescing or for untold sins committed before the story started. Not bad, though.
"The Sea Thing" has a sea captain and his reduced crew (following a cholera outbreak while at sea) foundering in the doldrums and incapable of escaping, when they come across a lifeboat with the sole survivor of a previous sinking. But as they welcome the man aboard, crew members begin to waste away and die... this is actually quite a nice little concise tale of a , well told. Presented for your listening pleasure on PSEUDOPOD: here
In "The Red Fetish," two men are stuck on a desert island atoll with no water. They d0n't want to die of dehydration, but it's a 6 mile swim to the next island, supposedly filled with cannibals (and fruit and fresh water springs). And what about the sharks? This is a very pulpy little piece, enjoyable if you don't get too bothered by the inherent racism of the "cannibal savages" concept, and a solid piece of "survival" adventure.
"Men Who Walk Upon The Air" has a starving, itinerant poet agree to a woman's offer of a meal, if he will climb the nearby gibbet and bring down her husband's body. But the poet, after some eating and drinking, presses his luck and asks the wife for a kiss, causing the sudden revenant appearance of her husband's aggressive corpse. A strange story - effective but somewhat confused, where the wife suffers either for acquiescing or for untold sins committed before the story started. Not bad, though.
"The Sea Thing" has a sea captain and his reduced crew (following a cholera outbreak while at sea) foundering in the doldrums and incapable of escaping, when they come across a lifeboat with the sole survivor of a previous sinking. But as they welcome the man aboard, crew members begin to waste away and die... this is actually quite a nice little concise tale of a , well told. Presented for your listening pleasure on PSEUDOPOD: here
May 11, 2023
This is the first of two volumes, collection the short stories of Frank Belknap Long. I think. This is an ambitious-looking project, aiming to collect FBL's writing in various "megapacks". Wait, mega-what? Yeah, it's kind of difficult to follow this project and it's various tentacularities. There's also the FBL "science fiction novel megapack" and the FBL "science fiction megapack" (volumes 1 and 2, with a third "coming soon").
Ah, well... These short stories are presented in chronological order, giving the reader (me) an insight in the evolution of a writer. The first half of this volume is pretty bad and conventional stuff, while things step up during the final few stories; say, from "The Dark Beasts" and forward. It's fair to assume mr. Long learned one or two things along the way. Of course, some of the earlier stories do have their charm, as well as traces of cosmic horror. But overall, this was a good bit less than I expected - or hoped for.
I think I need a break before starting on volume 2.
Ah, well... These short stories are presented in chronological order, giving the reader (me) an insight in the evolution of a writer. The first half of this volume is pretty bad and conventional stuff, while things step up during the final few stories; say, from "The Dark Beasts" and forward. It's fair to assume mr. Long learned one or two things along the way. Of course, some of the earlier stories do have their charm, as well as traces of cosmic horror. But overall, this was a good bit less than I expected - or hoped for.
I think I need a break before starting on volume 2.
July 30, 2024
Whilst perhaps not the better writer, Belknap Long's stories are often just as memorable as any of his contemporaries like Lovecraft and Ashton Smith. Whether it's creeping horror on a ship, a terrifying alien kidnap, giant psychic barnacles which have taken over the world or his classic Hounds of Tindalos, there are some exceptionally atmospheric stories. His later stories are not so good and fortunately confined to volume 2, but this volume is well worth a read
August 24, 2018
Some of Mr. Long's stories start very strong, but don't seem to go anywhere, and I was going to rate this volume three stars, but at the price (55 cents) and with the inclusion of "The Hounds of Tindalos" (possibly Mr. Long's best-known tale), I feel justified adding the fourth star.
Definitely worth reading.
Definitely worth reading.
July 6, 2021
A Beautiful Collection
Frank Belknap Long was a friend and contemporary of H. P. Lovecraft as well as an accomplished author in his own right. This collection is an eclectic group of Long’s stories ranging from cosmic horror to whimsy and collected from various pulp magazines that published Long’s work.
Frank Belknap Long was a friend and contemporary of H. P. Lovecraft as well as an accomplished author in his own right. This collection is an eclectic group of Long’s stories ranging from cosmic horror to whimsy and collected from various pulp magazines that published Long’s work.
January 17, 2019
Getting VOL. 2, Great Collection
Eager to read more than the usual stories found in Weird Fiction Anthologies, I was impressed by the Table Of Contents and find this collection doesn't disappoint. With a stronger sense of FBL's work, I hope VOL.2 is as entertaining.
Eager to read more than the usual stories found in Weird Fiction Anthologies, I was impressed by the Table Of Contents and find this collection doesn't disappoint. With a stronger sense of FBL's work, I hope VOL.2 is as entertaining.
February 8, 2021
I had to be an original Lovecraft circle completionist here, but the truth is that Long is mostly just average but with occasional stylistic flourishes to something greater but that are not upheld consistently or with anything all that interesting conceptually.
November 17, 2025
Presented in chronological order - which means some absolutely great stuff in here in the second half, if you can make it through the first few less skilled and often obtuse and pointless ones. My memory chooses to omit those for the most part in my rating
August 15, 2019
Complete trash by a writer whose name should be forgotten by time.
January 7, 2022
The last men.
February 28, 2024
✔️ The Creeper in Darkness, Frank Belknap Long 02/07/2024
February 24, 2021
Excellent weird stories!Lots of lovecraftian elements,well worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews