Necroscope Harry and The Pirate and Other Tales by Brian Lumley
This book is a set of two novellas and a short story. Brian Lumley is a good enough and popular enough writer where almost everything he has written gets published. He is a British Fantasy Award winning author. There is a touch of the analytical in his writing. He adds a bit of espionage, skulduggery, and historical analysis to weird tales about things from other worlds, mythical beasts, and horrors from the ancient past.
The main character, Harry Keogh, is a psychic who can speak to the dead, a necroscope. However, he also has a very deductive mind much like a detectives as well. The way Harry talks to the dead is rather interesting. Often the dead make references to many things which have happened in the historical past.
In the first novella, The Dead Travel Slowly, Harry contends with a thing from the ancient past. Lovers have been disappearing from the woods for many years. I especially like when Harry visits the local museum to uncover newspaper stories about the creature. There is a sense that Brian Lumley took local settings in the English countryside he had visited and put them into his story.
The second novella has Harry Keogh talking to dead pirates in a graveyard. It includes references to Port Royale, Edward Teach (Black Beard), and viking raiders. It is clear Brian Lumley read some pirate stories to make the stories have the original flavor. It is a story of lust , greed, and something terribly strange.
The stories are interesting because of the strange creatures, historical allusions, and skulduggery. This is a nice way to spend several afternoons reading. It is pure escapism. The stories are more suspenseful and entertaining than scary.
Showing posts with label brian lumley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brian lumley. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Daily Thoughts 8/6/2009 ( Email Newsletters )
Karl Capek author of R.U.R. -- Rodham's Universal Robots. Karl credited his brother, Josef Čapek, as the true inventor of the word robot. Daily Thoughts 8/6/2009
These are all email newsletters I get in my inbox for the latest information on books being released.
Fast Facts from Baker and Taylor
http://www.btol.com/fastfacts/
Email fastfacts@btol.com to join this one
Read Alert
http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=general_info&id=64
Shelf Awareness
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/
Michael Chabon has a new book Manhood For Amateurs which is coming out in October. I really like Chabon's books. This is a nonfiction title which should be interesting. He is mostly a literary author.
Today has been another quiet day. I spent some time reading Kirkus Reviews this morning and still have to read The New York Times Book Review. I also spent some more time weeding books. It has been a steady predictable day.
On the way home, I read some of Harry and the Pirates And Other Tales From The Lost Years by Brian Lumley. This is a kind of weird tale featuring Harry Keogh, a psychic and mystic who can talk to the dead. It is not that scary, but it does have some creepy beasts in it with odd historical footnotes. This book contains two novellas; For The Dead Travel Slowly and Harry and the Pirates; and a short story; End Piece: Old Man With a Blade. Brian Lumley is a British Fantasy Award winning author. He travels in the footsteps of H.P. Lovecraft and other writers of strange tales.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
The Taint and other Novellas By Brian Lumley
The Taint and other Novellas By Brian Lumley
This is a collection of novellas sent in the world of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a master of macabre horror. His writing is often called "cosmic horror." H.P. Lovecraft was influenced by Arthur Machen a writer of macabre stories.
The stories in the novellas for the most part follow the pattern of the stories in Lovecraft's works. This collection is focused on the Cthulhu mythos, stories about strange and terrible beings from other dimensions and the far stars. The elements of fear to the point of madness, monstrous slimy octopoid things, forbidden occult tomes, shadowy places at the edges of this world, and places too horrible to imagine are in these stories.
There is a real sense of nameless dread. Brian Lumley does this well. He has written a wide variety of horror books. His main hero is the occultist Titus Crow who prevents dark things from entering our world from the dreamlands and the Cthulhu mythos. Lumley has a website at
http://www.brianlumley.com/
The first story is a story about the god of the winds who bears a son in the frozen north. The story is called Born of the Winds. This is a story where everyone even the hero dies in the chill.
The Fairground Horror is a story of greed and folly. Hamilton Thorpe acquires a collection of terrifying antiquities from his mad brother. His greed blinds him to the increasingly terrible things happening around him. He is warned but does not listen and succumbs to a gruesome death.
In many of the stories, the protagonists are given chances to quit what they are doing, but they do not due to their own personal failings or curiosities.
The opening story, The Horror at Oakdeene is about a man studying strange psychological cases in an insane asylum. He himself becomes drawn into the madness of the patients and eventually after experiencing something unspeakable becomes a patient himself.
All of these stories have the terrible guttural language of things that came before man. There are short dark poems and reminders to not name the things which dwell in the dark.
The Taint is the feature story of the volume. The Deep Ones who themselves are often fishlike monstrosities have acquired the science of genetic engineering and have learned to pass themselves off as normal men. One of their number leaves Innsmouth and has two children, one human looking and one deformed and piscine. The story is excellent.
Lord of the Worms is the story of how Titus Crow, Brian Lumley's main hero becomes a master magician and defeats a maggot infested, evil, ancient wizard.
Rising With Surtsey is the story of a man who becomes obsessed with books about old ones. He reads fiction and occult books about Cthulhu and slowly turns into one of their priests. He ends up killed by his own brother.
The final story is The House of the Temple. It is the story of an accursed family, The McGilchrist's. An inheritor goes back to destroy his old ancestral home and goes mad in the process.
This is an excellent collection of novellas. If you like horror, especially cosmic horror you will enjoy this collection. Cthulhu, an octopoid alien monstrosity features in the background of many of these stories sitting in the bottom of the ocean in sunken R'lyeh. These stories have a strong suspense element to them, they are not just go and fight the monster. They are reminders that there are things which we should not see and places and knowledge best left alone.
Bob Eggleton did the cover art for the book. He also did several small internal illustrations; most of these are about an inch and a half acros, a skull with tentactles, a winged octopuss, and a monsters eye. Bob Eggleton has an art blog here: http://bobsartdujour.blogspot.com/ / (Bob's Art of the Day)
This is a collection of novellas sent in the world of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a master of macabre horror. His writing is often called "cosmic horror." H.P. Lovecraft was influenced by Arthur Machen a writer of macabre stories.
The stories in the novellas for the most part follow the pattern of the stories in Lovecraft's works. This collection is focused on the Cthulhu mythos, stories about strange and terrible beings from other dimensions and the far stars. The elements of fear to the point of madness, monstrous slimy octopoid things, forbidden occult tomes, shadowy places at the edges of this world, and places too horrible to imagine are in these stories.
There is a real sense of nameless dread. Brian Lumley does this well. He has written a wide variety of horror books. His main hero is the occultist Titus Crow who prevents dark things from entering our world from the dreamlands and the Cthulhu mythos. Lumley has a website at
http://www.brianlumley.com/
The first story is a story about the god of the winds who bears a son in the frozen north. The story is called Born of the Winds. This is a story where everyone even the hero dies in the chill.
The Fairground Horror is a story of greed and folly. Hamilton Thorpe acquires a collection of terrifying antiquities from his mad brother. His greed blinds him to the increasingly terrible things happening around him. He is warned but does not listen and succumbs to a gruesome death.
In many of the stories, the protagonists are given chances to quit what they are doing, but they do not due to their own personal failings or curiosities.
The opening story, The Horror at Oakdeene is about a man studying strange psychological cases in an insane asylum. He himself becomes drawn into the madness of the patients and eventually after experiencing something unspeakable becomes a patient himself.
All of these stories have the terrible guttural language of things that came before man. There are short dark poems and reminders to not name the things which dwell in the dark.
The Taint is the feature story of the volume. The Deep Ones who themselves are often fishlike monstrosities have acquired the science of genetic engineering and have learned to pass themselves off as normal men. One of their number leaves Innsmouth and has two children, one human looking and one deformed and piscine. The story is excellent.
Lord of the Worms is the story of how Titus Crow, Brian Lumley's main hero becomes a master magician and defeats a maggot infested, evil, ancient wizard.
Rising With Surtsey is the story of a man who becomes obsessed with books about old ones. He reads fiction and occult books about Cthulhu and slowly turns into one of their priests. He ends up killed by his own brother.
The final story is The House of the Temple. It is the story of an accursed family, The McGilchrist's. An inheritor goes back to destroy his old ancestral home and goes mad in the process.
This is an excellent collection of novellas. If you like horror, especially cosmic horror you will enjoy this collection. Cthulhu, an octopoid alien monstrosity features in the background of many of these stories sitting in the bottom of the ocean in sunken R'lyeh. These stories have a strong suspense element to them, they are not just go and fight the monster. They are reminders that there are things which we should not see and places and knowledge best left alone.
Bob Eggleton did the cover art for the book. He also did several small internal illustrations; most of these are about an inch and a half acros, a skull with tentactles, a winged octopuss, and a monsters eye. Bob Eggleton has an art blog here: http://bobsartdujour.blogspot.com/ / (Bob's Art of the Day)
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Classic Thoughts
Poe's Grave at Westminster There is a new collection of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction , H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction. The tome
collects all 68 of H.P. Lovecraft's Stories. I think it is something which we should definitely get. Jonathan Carroll also has a new book, The Ghost In Love. I rather enjoy Jonathan Carroll's writing.
To start the day, I am getting a poem:
Where Once Poe Walked by H. P. Lovecraft
Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.
Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.
Right now, I am sitting at the computer at my local library. I took a short walk up the hill to the library. It was very cold outside. Still, I need to walk every day if I am going to lose more weight. I returned the single book I took out last time.
Today I picked up a few more books to read. The first book is a mass market paperback, Necropath, A Bengal Station Novel by Eric Brown. The book intrigued me because it on the blurb it said there is an evil alien cult. Evil alien cults in science fiction are very campy and often entertaining.
I also picked up two book on negotiating. Things have been a little sticky here and there when talking to people at work. I have to be careful. I picked up, Guerrilla Negotiating Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Get What You Want by Jay Conrad Levinson, Mark S.A. Smith, and Orvel Ray Wilson. The Guerrilla Marketing series is very popular at our library in the business section. I also picked up Teach Yourself Negotiating by Phil Baguley. Teach Yourself Negotiating looks like a basic outline of the process of negotiating.
It is comfortable and warm in here, while it is very cold outside.
I am back this afternoon. I have finished reading The Taint and Other Novellas by Brian Lumley. One of the most interesting aspects of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos are the occult books which drive men mad. A lot of them are purely fantastic creations with malevolent intent. This is a chart of what is real and what is false in the mythos chronicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_miscellaneous_books
Some people actually believe that some of H.P. Lovecraft's fictional horror books are true. People are quite gullible with these kinds of things. It is easy to cook up nonsense and sell it as something truly nasty. It is not particularly benevolent. A few of his fake horror books are being sold as real occult works. This is a nice article from The Straight Dope debunking the truth of his made up books. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1934/was-h-p-lovecrafts-necronomicon-for-real
There is also a Miskatonic University Library in H.P. Lovecraft's books. Being a librarian, I find it rather fascinating. It is in the fictional town of Arkham in Massachusetts. It is headed by the heroic librarian, Dr. Henry Armitage who defeats the Dunwich Horror, a short story by Lovecraft.
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