The Fisherman is a 2016 Horror novel written by John Langan. It was his second published novel and won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award. It is also his first novel to be set in his Black Ocean universe, otherwise made up of short stories.
Abraham, or Abe, is an aging widower who has struggled with grief following his wife's passing. In an effort to help cope with his loss, he takes up fishing as a hobby. Eventually, he forms a friendship with his coworker and fellow widower, Dan, who is dealing with the loss of his wife and children after a car accident. The pair fish together for some time, and all seems well until Dan suggests they try a new fishing spot in upstate New York, known as Dutchman's Creek, or Der Platz das Fischer. Dutchman's Creek is no ordinary fishing hole: local legend holds that it connects to the underworld, and that lost loved ones can be brought back by those determined enough.
When Dan and Abe stop by a local diner on their way to the creek, the cook tells them the history of the area and how the creek got its name. Despite his warnings, the pair persistent in their journey. However, as these would-be fishermen soon find out, there's far more to the story and its impact on our world than just truth to the legends.
As of 2024, Langan is currently writing a loosely-related sequel, tentatively titled The Cleaving Stone.
The Fisherman contains the following tropes:
- Alien Sky: The other world of the Black Ocean and its cities has its night sky filled with unusual constellations.
- Another Story for Another Time: After defeating Der Fischer for the first time, Rainier essentially says as much to one of his men when they encounter a strange orb embedded in the roots of a tree.
- Another Dimension: Dutchman's Creek is a thin spot between our world and another, although knowledgeable practitioners (or the very unlucky) can find or make their own ways across.
- Bizarrchitecture: The cities of the otherworld feature strange design choices, such as "Streets [that] ended unexpectedly in blank walls [...] bridges which came to a stop high in the air [and] circular courtyards from which a dozen alleyways branched out."
- Badass Bookworm: Rainier Schmidt, a former rising-star professor at a prestigious German university and an accomplished, although not fully learned, practitioner of magic capable of going head-to-head with ancient sorcerers.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Heinrich Khunrath, a real life 16th century German physician and alchemist, was a learned sorcerer and practitioner of the dark arts.
- Body Horror: Helen Dort, who is first run over by a cart and then brought back the "Guest". The process does nothing to fix the mangled state of her body.
- Came Back Wrong: Helen, who is brought back as something that inhabits her broken, cart-trampled corpse, and which speaks a strange, guttural language that drives people mad.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Arguably two examples:
- In Howard's story, Rainier and his men are able to (temporarily) defeat Der Fischer, a centuries-old dark sorcerer, and undo most of his magical ritual while only losing one man.
- In the present day, Dan, or an otherworldly monster that thinks it's Dan, attacks Abe at his home during a massive flood. Abe simply burns the monster with a spray can and a match, and kicks it back into the waters. The whole fight takes several seconds.
- Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Abe has sex with what he sees as Marie, while in the woods of the other world. It's very clear that, whatever the creature truly is or is pretending to be, it's not his wife.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Leviathan itself, which is an unfathomably massive serpent with god-like powers that dwarfs islands. It's referred to as one of the "Great Powers", and seems to have been around since the creation of the universe, inhabiting the black ocean that underlies reality.
- Eldritch Location: The world of the Black Ocean, which is described as a sort of Platonic ideal reality that underlies our own. It includes what Abe comes to call "Vivid Trees", which are sort of the platonic ideal of a tree, as well as strange, labyrinthine cities built and inhabited by civilizations of sorcerers over the millennia.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Overlapping with Magic Is Evil, the sorcery of the Schwartzkunstlers carries a high price for mistakes, as Wilhelm, one of Rainier's companions on his expedition to the Black City, discovers.
- Evil Sorcerer: Referred to in-story as Schwartzkunstlers, several are mentioned. The most prominent is Der Fischer, a vengeful and determined practitioner of the dark arts. Rainier also falls in with a group of morally ambiguous sorcerers during his time teaching in Germany, although they're more reckless than evil.
- Half-Human Hybrid: The result of Abe having sex with not-Marie, which results in two children who seem to be the same type of being as their mother, yet are undeniably the product of an interspecies coupling.
- Humanoid Abomination: The pale, fish-man like creatures that inhabit the coasts and waters of the Black Ocean. They're incredibly powerful, able to cast spells and hexes as well as shapeshift, but how exactly their minds work is left unclear, with indications that they themselves are not sentient, but just reflections of those around them.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The goal of Der Fischer is to capture one of the "Great Powers", in this case, an unfathomably large serpent that has gone by many names in myths over the years, including Leviathan.
- Magically-Binding Contract: One between the eldritch fish-people and human sorcerers, referred to as the Compact, is briefly alluded to. It seems to necessitate, among other undescribed features, that a sorcerer's questions are answered honestly after being asked repeatedly.
- Magic Is Evil: Or at least very dangerous to use, as Professor Rainer Schmidt and his cohort experience first hand. Rainer alludes to rituals and hexes being strengthened with sacrifices and the blood of the innocent, although he's upstanding enough that he doesn't resort to that.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While there is very obviously real magic in the story, the exact nature of Rainier's, and later Lottie's, Alzheimer's is left a little ambiguous. While the setting has established that it's possibly caused by exposure to the dark, arcane forces that sorcerers command, the themes of the book also mean that it could just be the natural course of life and bad familial luck.
- Nested Story: Much of the action takes place in Howard's story, told to Abe and Dan in an attempt to warn them away from the Creek, which in turn is largely composed of a story told by Lottie to the Lutheran minister from whom Howard heard Lottie's account.
- Noodle Incident: Numerous examples, including the nature of the competition in which Der Fischer won the book that allowed him to pursue godhood and most of Rainier's time with the sorcerer lodge in Hamburg, which taught him much about the other world.
- Platonic Cave: What our world or level of reality is. The story indicates that there's a true, real, reality that underlies our own, and that what we see and interact with are just imperfect reflections of this layer.
- Survivor Guilt: Dan largely suffers from this as a result being the driver when a car accident killed his wife and sons.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In their own respective eras, what do Abe and Rainier do, after Dan's death and having vanquished Der Fischer, respectively? They go back to their normal lives. In telling Abe and Dan about Rainier's story, Howard sums it up thusly: "Life goes on. That’s the remarkable thing, isn’t it?"
- The Lost Lenore: To different degrees for Dan and Abe, but mostly for Dan, who is unable to move on from his loss. The desire to get his family back is what drives Dan to take his chances with Der Fischer.
- Words Can Break My Bones: Magic is apparently tied to the words of an ancient proto-language. Single words can do things like restore or vanquish light, while speakers with greater grasps of the language can draw listeners into their words and do actual harm, or traverse great distances.
