Frank Belknap Long was born on this date, April 27, in 1901.  Long was friends with H. P. Lovecraft, and he’s best remembered today as a member of the Lovecraft circle.  Long contributed a number of  stories to the Mythos over the years, my personal favorite being “The Hounds of Tindalos”.

But Long wrote in multiple genres, including Gothics mostly under his wife’s name.  Today I want to look briefly at one of his science fiction stories.  “Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall” was first published in the November 1948 issue of Startling Stories.   This story concerns a boy who grew up alone on a space ship until he was about eighteen.  The boys’ father died while repairing a part of the ship when the kid was eight.  The father had provided the boy an extensive but eclectic library.  He reads all kinds of technical stuff.  He also reads a lot of Mother Goose.

Frank Belknap Long

Once he’s rescued and returned to his family home, long uninhabited, he uses some of the tools in his father’s shop to create a gateway to the world of his dreams, a world inspired by Mother Goose rhymes.  After accidentally knocking one of the scientists who is also one of his guards, the young man flees.  He shows up at the apartment of Kenneth Wayne with the device, seeking shelter. Wayne and his girlfriend end up inside the crazy world.

The world Wayne and his girlfriend find themselves in is a nightmare world.  There are archers who routinely attack anything that moves, including a race of creatures that resemble eggs with tadpole-like limbs and the faces of old men.

This was an interesting story.  Long could have made it, well, longer if he had introduced more rhymes.  I will say the twist on the ending was good.

“Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall” has been reprinted several times.  According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, I’ve read it before because it’s in a Long collection I read years ago, although I had no memory of having previously read it when I read it this evening.  The story is currently available in The 9th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack:  Frank Belknap Long Vol. 2