"There are lots of other things that I haven't done, places I haven't seen. So eventually I'll have to find time for those things while there still is time." -- Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley (born 2 December 1937) is an English horror fiction writer.
Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.
He added to H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle of stories, including several tales featuring the character Titus Crow. Others pastiched Lovecrafts's Dream Cycle and featured the characters David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer. Lumley once explained the difference between his Cthulhu Mythos characters and Lovecraft's: "My guys fight back. Also, they like to have a laugh along the way."
Later works included the Necroscope series of novels, which produced spin-off series such as the Vampire World Trilogy, The Lost Years parts 1 and 2, and the E-Branch trilogy. The central protagonist of the earlier Necroscope novels appears in the anthology Harry Keogh and Other Weird Heroes. The Necroscope saga is closed with the novel The Touch.
Lumley served as president of the Horror Writers Association from 1996 to 1997. On 28 March 2010 got Lumley the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association.
"A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!""And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it.""But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.""But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.""But there's a little guy who sits astride my brain with a whip, and if I'm away from the machine for more than a couple of hours during the day, this little guy's lashing away.""German readers are much like Brits or Americans: They read for the thrill of it, the occasional shudder down the spine, knowing it's not real - but looking over their shoulders anyway, just in case.""I have friends who read my books in Greek.""I should think just about every young writer - which I was at the time - would be influenced by HPL. As an American writer of weird fiction, he was at the top of the class.""I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.""If I had killed Crow off I can think of least six novels I would never have written, 400,000 words' worth of very necessary experience.""If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didn't see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.""Now, after 18 years, not a sign of Lovecraft in my work.""Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.""The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.""The Army was my bread and butter.""We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.""Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers."
Lumley's list of his favourite horror stories..."not complete by any means and by no means in order of preference"...includes M. R. James' "Count Magnus", Robert E. Howard's "The Black Stone", Robert W. Chambers' "The Yellow Sign" from The King in Yellow, William Hope Hodgson's "The Voice in the Night", and H. P. Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Colour out of Space".
This is a list of Lumley's more notable novels and short story collections. This list of novels and short stories is not exhaustive. Lumley has had many pieces published in periodicals and other publications, sometimes as works in progress or partial works, under his own name and jointly with other writers.
Necroscope Saga
Necroscope (1986)
Necroscope II: Wamphyri! (1988)
US Title: Necroscope II: Vampyri!
Necroscope III: The Source (1989)
Necroscope IV: Deadspeak (1990)
Necroscope V: Deadspawn (1991)
Vampire World 1: Blood Brothers (1992)
US Title: Blood Brothers
Vampire World 2: The Last Aerie (1993)
US Title: The Last Aerie
Vampire World 3: Bloodwars (1994)
US Title: Bloodwars
Necroscope: The Lost Years Volume 1 (1995)
US Title: Necroscope: The Lost Years
Necroscope: The Lost Years Volume 2 (1996)
US Title: Necroscope: Resurgence, The Lost Years Volume Two
E-Branch 1: Invaders (1998)
US Title: Necroscope: Invaders
E-Branch 2 : Defilers (1999)
E-Branch 3: Avengers (2000)
Necroscope: The Touch (2006)
US only
Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates (2009)
Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer(2010)
The Psychomech Trilogy
Psychomech (1984)
Psychosphere (1984)
Psychamok (1985)
Cthulhu Cycle Deities Novels
Titus Crow/Henri deMarigney
The Burrowers Beneath (1974, ISBN 0-312-86867-7)
The Transition of Titus Crow (1975, ISBN 0-312-86299-7)
The Clock of Dreams (1978, ISBN 0-312-86868-5)
Spawn of the Winds (1978, ISBN 0-515-04571-3)
In the Moons of Borea (1979, ISBN 0-312-86866-9)
Elysia (1989, ISBN 0-932445-32-2), in which the characters of the Titus Crow series meet characters from Lumley's two other series, Dreamlands and Primal Land, for a grand confrontation with the Dark Forces. The completing novel for Titus/Dreamlands/Primal Lands series
Dreamlands Novels (2009, all five from Full Moon Press)
Hero of Dreams (1986)
Ship of Dreams (1986)
Mad Moon of Dreams (1987)
Iced on Aran: Collection of Dreamland tales featuring David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer
Primal Land Novels
House of Cthulhu (1991)
Tarra Khash: Hrossak! ()
Sorcery in Shad (1991)
Other Novels
Beneath the Moors (1974...Arkham House)
The House of Doors (1990)
And its sequel, House of Doors: The Second Visit (Maze of Worlds in the US) (1998)
Demogorgon (1987)
Khai of Ancient Khem (or Khai of Khem in a recent reprint) (1980)
Short Stories
Lumley has written many original tales, as well as some reminiscent of Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft.Here is a selected bibliography of his short story collections.
The Caller of the Black (1971...Arkham House)
The Horror at Oakdeene and Others (1977...Arkham House)
Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi (1993)
Dagon's Bell and Other Discords (1994)
The Second Wish and Other Exhalations (?)
The House of Cthulhu and Others (1984)
Collection of Primal Land tales
A Coven of Vampires (Fedogan & Bremer, 1998)
Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes! (2003)
US only; features two new stories featuring Harry Keogh, the eponymous Necroscope as well as previously published short stories of some of Lumley's more enduring heroes, Titus Crow plus David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer
The Whisperer and Other Voices (2001)
Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space
Brian Lumley's Freaks
Dark Delicacies (2005)
My Thing Friday
The Subterranean Press Edition
Necroscope (novel)
Brian Lumley's Freaks
Introduction
In the Glow Zone
Mother Love
Problem Child
The Ugly Act
Somebody Calling
A Coven of Vampires (1998)
What Dark God?
Back Row
The Strange Years
The Kiss of the Lamia
Recognition
The Thief Immortal
Necros
The Thing From the Blasted Heath
Uzzi
Haggopian
The Picknickers
Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler
The House of the Temple
Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space
Snarker's Son
The Man Who Felt Pain
The Strange Years
No Way Home
The Man Who Saw No Spiders
Deja Viewer
Feasibility Study
Gaddy's Gloves
The Big 'C'
The Taint and others novellas: Best Mythos Tales, Volume One (2007)
