Frank Belknap Long

Today, April 27, is the birthday of Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994). Long is best remembered today as a member of the Lovecraft Circle, and his best-remembered work is arguably “The Hounds of Tindalos”, one of my personal favorites.

It’s unfortunate that his Lovecraftian fiction has overshadowed his other work. Long was a pulp writer who wrote a lot of other things than just Mythos tales, including science fiction and other types of fantasy. I want to look at one of his fantasies, “Fisherman’s Luck”. It was originally published in the July 1940 issue of Unknown. It has been reprinted a number of times since. I read it in The 9th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack: Frank Belknanp Long Vol. 2. 

The story is very much a typical Unknown story. By that I mean it’s set in what would have been contemporary times at publication and concerns the misadventures of a man who encounters magic in the modern world.

Mason hasn’t been allowed a vacation for five years when his boss dies unexpectedly. The boss’s partner wants to continue this practice, but the widow insists he be allowed some time off. Mason is an avid fisherman who hasn’t cast a line in years, so he heads for the Catskills for some fishing. He has a new rod he picked up for a song in a pawn shop that he wants to try out.

He’s fishing in an isolated pool near where a saw mill had been located some decades before. Legend has it that a Chinese cook at the mill had gotten into a fight with another man and ended up getting decapitated. The Chinaman’s head was thrown into the river and never found.

Until Mason tosses in his line.

The head is the only thing he’s caught all day. He puts the head in his creel, thinking he will take it to the police, but first he stops into the bar for a drink. It’s there he learns that the murder took place so long ago that he’ll probably become the suspect. He goes to his room to think, and while thinking he drops his line out the window to dry.

When he pulls it in, there’s a beautiful blond attached who is dressed in the style of a previous era. And she’s very much alive.

I’ll not spoil the rest. “Fisherman’s Luck” is a fun little tale and worth your time.