Monstrous hounds from cosmic dimensions beyond our world hunt to destroy you, alien forces probe to see what delicacies are on your mind, and vampires on the arcs of lightning issue a deadly for you to surrender. These are just a few creations of the science fiction master, Frank Belknap Long.

Frank Belknap Long was a visionary writer ahead of his time. Long’s career was a diverse array of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction saw the birth and growth of these genres. Long lived until he was 92 and had a writing career that spanned seven decades.

If there is an air of Lovecraft in Long’s works there’s a good reason. His mentor was H.P. Lovecraft. He was part of the Lovecraft inner circle and had early contributions to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Long was an award-winning writer. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (1978), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (1987 Horror Writers Association) and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).

Sadly, Frank Belknap Long died in poverty of pneumonia at Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in Manhattan, after a seven-decade career as a writer and editor. Due to his poverty, he was interred in a desolate potter’s field for indigents. Fans, friends and colleagues were outraged by this indignity and had his remains moved and reinterred at New York City’s Woodlawn Cemetery next to the grandparents of his friend in life, Lovecraft.

Frank Belknap Long’s body of work included twenty-nine novels, 150 short stories, eight collections of short stories, three poetry collections, and numerous freelance magazine articles and comic book scripts.

Notable quotes

Ray Bradbury: “Frank Belknap Long has lived through a major part of science fiction history in the U.S., has known most of the writers personally, or has corresponded with them, and has, with his own writing, helped shape the field when most of us were still in our early teens.”

H.P. Lovecraft: “The Genius of Mr. Long is a spontaneous and self-expressive one.”

“The Hounds of Tindalos” was first published in March 1929 by Weird Tales. The story is part of the Cthulu mythos written by Frank Belknap Long. It’s unique in that it’s the first mythos story written by anyone other than Lovecraft. The “Hounds of Tindalos” have influenced or been referenced by many later mythos writers, including Ramsey Campbell, Lin Carter, Brian Lumley, Dean Koontz, and Peter Cannon. “The Hounds of Tindalos” are Long’s most famous fictional creation. They were described by Long as a pack of foul and incomprehensibly alien beasts “emerging from strange angles in dim recesses of non-Euclidean space before the dawn of time”.

What devious plans to these devil dogs have? Can the hounds be kept at bay?