THE DEEP ONES: "The Horror from the Hills" by Frank Belknap Long

"The Horror from the Hills" by Frank Belknap Long

Discussion begins January 31, 2024.

First published in the January 1931 issue of Weird Tales.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?93445

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Night Fear
The Horror from the Hills

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://cthulhufiles.com/stories/long/long-the-horror-from-the-hills.html

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Frank_Belknap_Long
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Belknap_Long
https://darkworldsquarterly.gwthomas.org/frank-belknap-long-part-one-1920-1939/
https://darkworldsquarterly.gwthomas.org/frank-belknap-long-part-two-the-1940s/
https://darkworldsquarterly.gwthomas.org/frank-belknap-long-part-3-1950-2016/
http://tinyurl.com/4jw953et

Well, I thought there were some discordant elements in the first section. Harris almost seems a parody with his cavalier disregard for his field workers losing limbs, getting sick, and getting tortured. Ullman's shrill delivery is a bit overdone. And Long has some odd word choices (e.g. "companion" as a verb).

But I liked this one and Long's digressions into an evolution of minerals, hormones and plastic surgery, the cultural evolution of fetishes, and the dimensional fantasy element he used so well in his "The Hounds of Tindalos".

I just ran across a Reddit post by Ramsey Campbell (!) from 6 years ago in which he states, "The Roman chapter of The Horror from the Hills is based on a dream Lovecraft described in a letter." I think I'll dig into the I Am Providence index a little later to see if I can find any more info.

>3 gwendetenebre: Lovecraft related the dream -- as an example of his identification with Ancient Rome -- in a letter to Bernard Austin Dwyer in November 1927. I'm not sure how Long found out about it.