Wednesday, May 30, 2007

No Vampire – a Caution

Some of you may have read Brian Lumley’s Necroscope series, or part of it. The books (at first) concentrated on Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, a young man who could talk to the dead. He was pitted against the Wamphiri – Lumley’s version of the vampire and a rather nasty version too.

The series is long running. Necroscope ran for five large volumes, followed by the three volume series Vampire World, two Lost Years books and a trilogy sometimes called E_Branch and at other times called Necroscope. The common thread was the wamphiri and their alternate universe home starside/sunside.

A new Necroscope novel has been released, with a new Necroscope, entitled the Touch. The good news, it is typical Lumley pulp horror with a Lovecraft edge (not surprising as Lumley also writes Mythos material). The bad news, not a vampire in sight. We get a wolf whose lineage is starside/sunside and a brief mention of the wamphiri by members of E-Branch – that’s about it. The book goes back in time, from where the E-Branch series ended, to just a few months after Harry’s death.

One to watch out for if you are invested in the series, as I am – but no vampires I’m afraid. I was tempted to ‘Vamp or Not?’ this, but it is clearly not vampire, despite the wamphiri like cover and a quote by H R Geiger that mentions vampires.

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