Gateway Essentials: Brian Lumley

Born in County Durham in 1937, Brian Lumley joined the British Army’s Royal Military Police where he served in many of the Cold War hotspots, including Berlin and Cyprus in partition days. After reaching the rank of Sergeant Major, he retired to Devon to pursue his writing career full time, and was first published in 1970. Specialising in horror fiction, his works include the well-known Necroscope series of novels and spin-offs such as the Vampire World Trilogy and the E-Branch trilogy.

Brian Lumley served as the president of the Horror Writers Association from 1966 to 1997. He was decorated with both the World Fantasy and Stoker Awards for lifetime achievement in 2010.

As for where to start if you’ve never read Brian Lumley’s work?  We think can help . . .

Dead men tell no tales . . . except to Harry Keogh, Necroscope. And what they tell him is horrifying . . .

In the Balkan mountains of Rumania, a terrible evil is growing. Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.

The vampire’s human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire’s mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead.

Dragosani works not for Ferenczy’s freedom but world domination. he will rule the world with knowledge raped from the dead.

His only opponent: Harry Koegh, champion of the dead and the living.

And to protect Harry, the dead will do anything – even rise from their graves!

 
And there’s plenty more where that came from!

 

You can find more of Brian Lumley’s work – including more Essentials! – via his Author page on the SF Gateway website and read about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy.