Necroscope

March 1, 2010
Lumley reveals perhaps more than he intended to in the note following this turgid supernatural novella, originally intended to be a chapter in his 1995 two-part novel, The Lost Years
. Having promised his publisher a vampire tale, Lumley remembered a story line he had previously thought superfluous and decided to write it after all. The convoluted plot, in which the Francezci brothers recruit American mobster and vampire Mike Milazzo as a weapon against Harry Keogh, a “necroscope” who can communicate with the dead, will leave many readers wishing the author had left it on the cutting-room floor. The writing is often clumsy (“Harry knew that their moon-child nature caused little more than a trace of the telepathic phenomenon known by E-Branch's mentalists as mindsmog”), and the story will make sense only to Lumley's longtime fans.

May 31, 1999
Vast in scope and overripe with extraordinary characters and incidents, Lumleys proliferating Necroscope saga almost mandates a book-length reference companion. This new novel, the 11th in the series (after Resurgence, 1996) and the first in an offshoot trilogy, carries on the tradition in fine form, but also shows the problems inherent in keeping the increasingly byzantine intrigues of these horror/espionage hybrids accessible to new readers. During an explosive start, in which psychic agents of the hard-working E- (short for ESP) Branch smoke out a nest of vampires in the Australian desert, the novel introduces Jake Cutter, another of Lumleys gutsy populist heroes. Jake has been delivered to the paranormal intelligence unit by the ghost of Harry Keogh, the original Necroscope, who foresees a future clash between Jake and a vampire trio wreaking havoc on Earth. Harrys discorporate consciousness takes up residence in Jakes mind, but Jake is totally ignorant of the vampire invaders from the alternate universe of Sunside/Starside and the long-running war that left Harry (and, by proxy, Jake) infected with their taint. This necessitates a lengthy and tedious history of events from the preceding novels, recounted to Jake by both mortals and monsters in multiple chapters of straight exposition. Granted, Lumleys characters are a lively bunch, but none tell the story as excitingly as he does, and the result is not unlike sitting down at the dinner table with a hearty appetite and hearing about a sumptuous banquet someone else attended. A climactic encounter with the vampire Nephran Malinari in his aerie in the Australian mountains gets the action roaring again by the storys finale, and with luck heralds the end of the laborious updates.

May 1, 2000
The 12th novel in Lumley's Necroscope series shows the hitherto vigorous vampire epic getting long in the tooth. Though it features the usual vast and vivid cast of psychic sleuths and earthly undead monsters, it is noticeably stingy with the plot twists and full-throttle action that have made the saga a formidable fusion of espionage and supernatural horror. The trio of other-dimensional Wamphyri who took refuge on Earth in Necroscope: Invaders are still on the loose at the novel's start, and Ben Trask's indefatigable E- (short for ESP) Branch is determined to prevent them from spreading the infectious vampire fungi. To kill time while they follow clues that lead them to the vampire stronghold in a convent on the Greek island of Krassos, Ben and his operatives converse in tedious exchanges that seem not so much dialogue as lectures and briefings for the reader's benefit. Similarly, the vampire master Nephran Malinari and the Lady Vavara snipe incessantly at one another in melodramatic Dark Shadows swatches. The problem is most acute in nominal hero Jake Cutter, who spends most of the tale sidetracked on a personal vendetta against a mafia kingpin, sparring mentally with the absorbed consciousness of the vampire Korath, who whispers nonstop provocations in his ear as part of their Faustian pact. The three cliffhanger finales in the final pages echo climaxes of previous novels, and seem little more than deliberate overcompensation for the story's surprising stasis.

April 23, 2001
This new bottle can't disguise the aging wine of Lumley's Necroscope series or the increasingly stale bouquet of its last few installments. Set in a world where the vampire villains are resurrected as regularly as the cinematic Frankenstein's monster, and where the psychic hero is forever channeling the thoughts of dead characters from previous episodes, this expansive 13th novel is distinguished mostly by its sense of déjà vu. The story picks up right after events in Necroscope: Defilers
(2000) with the revelation that vampires Nephran Malinari, the Lady Vavara and Lord Szwart are still at large, despite the efforts of Ben Trask's E-Branch operatives to wipe them out in Greece. The ESPionage agents chase the elusive vampires through Turkey, trying to prevent them from seeding the world with spores of virulent vampire fungi. Jake Cutter, neophyte Necroscope (someone who can converse with the dead), remains mostly on the periphery, still wrestling with a personal vampire taint that makes him resemble more and more the similarly infected first Necroscope, Harry Keogh. Once again troubles at Russia's interdimensional Perchorsk Gate, which opens to the vampire universe, add to the mess. Lumley still excels at depicting heroes larger than life and horrors worse than death, but his rehash of earlier intrigues and plot twists bogs the tale down. The exciting pyrotechnic finale appears to bring resolution to some long-running subplots, but also calls attention to how often this novel coasts when it could explode.

November 10, 2003
The prose equivalent of a graphic novel, British horror mainstay Lumley's latest entry in his enduring Necroscope series (Blood Brothers
, etc.) will dazzle some and weary others with its nonstop weird action. Here series hero Harry Keogh, a Necroscope (the only one in the world) who can speak with the dead, faces two major tasks—tracking down a particularly vicious serial killer and uprooting a vampire within himself. Besides confronting a host of vampires, murderers and gypsies, Harry finds time to enjoy a few relatively quiet moments, like playing mathematical games with Pythagoras. While Lumley's popularity may be inexplicable to some, his long, messy, convoluted supernatural adventure thrillers put him firmly in the tradition of such classic Gothic authors as Ann Radcliffe, Charles Maturin and Gregory "Monk" Lewis. (Dec. 17)

FYI:
This novel, like many other Lumley titles, was first published by small-press editor W. Paul Ganley. Both Lumley and Ganley were guests of honor at this year's World Fantasy Convention, held Halloween weekend in Washington, D.C.