dante
Full Member
Sooner or later you'll want to live forever.
Posts: 186
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Post by dante on Aug 16, 2006 11:38:32 GMT -5
Hello bookworms. Just had to come and say that even though i love pretty much every word clive barker's ever written, my favourite book is Brian Lumley's Necroscope. In fact there's 5 necroscope books, 3 vampire world books, and then 2 necroscope lost years books... and then some more stuff called e-branch - it's all one massive story, and i really really recommend it. i can honestly say that it changed my life in the same way that Nightbreed (the film) did. Apologies if you've already heard of the Necroscope series, just thought some of you guys might find it cool.... take it easy
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Post by darkglobe on Aug 17, 2006 8:25:44 GMT -5
I've not read any, but it seems like a fun series. Lumley has an official site that seems to have the basic info: www.brianlumley.com/
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Boneyard
New Member
Hyena, junior rank
Posts: 29
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Post by Boneyard on Sept 1, 2006 22:19:48 GMT -5
I've read the first book, and I quite liked it. It mixed action and horror and made it work. I THINK I have some of the rest of the series around here somewhere, I snapped up a bunch of Lumley books at a library sale. Is the rest of the series any good? The first one seemed pretty complete and somewhat final, if I'm remembering it correctly. It's been a while since I've read it though.
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dante
Full Member
Sooner or later you'll want to live forever.
Posts: 186
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Post by dante on Sept 4, 2006 11:54:52 GMT -5
the first book is the best - i won't lie about it. it is a complete story arc, and somehow seems to work even when it feels that it can't. the slight circular twist at the end is still the greatest twist i've ever read in a book (you are even warned about it twice in the book before it happens, and still it gets you), and to be honest Lumley never really reaches that perfect crescendo again. he comes close - very close in fact, but this book is perfect even as a stand alone story.
however, in book 2 the story moves in a different direction. it narrows the plot considerably and highlights the things we were interested in during the first book. it tells us about the everyday lives of these characters - and the passage about the father of the house witnessing 'something' is still the most pleasing and unexpected of simple plot twists that i have ever read. this book sets up the rest of the series, giving us a new direction to look in.
book 3 is then unexpectedly completely different. the whole story is expanded to a massive scale, encompassing another completely new look at what we already know. we start to learn the massive history behind the saga.
book 4 shows us the effect of this from yet another viewpoint. the story is narrowed again, but also taken somewhere we did not expect it again. we learn a few more things, but really we follow a simplistic tale to a fantastic conclusion.
book 5 completes the series with a conclusion every bit as dark yet satisfying as any before it - including book 1. we are constantly reminded of the little details we read in previous books, only now they make sense as a whole. nasty, brutal, brilliant.
all 5 books MUST be read in order to realise this perfectly circular story as a whole. it is truly epic.
and that's only where the fun starts.....
the next three in the series - the vampire world books - are essentially a rites of passage, lord of the rings type of story (only way to describe the scale of it). compellingly dark, and beautifully horrific. they follow on the story from the necroscope books (particularly the third one), but with a different set of characters in a different place. a fantastic read...... pure bloody pathos.
then there's the necroscope: lost years books - which fill in the gaps in the stories in the first 5 books. perfect for the ultimate fanboy like me - to be reunited with the charaters i had read about years before.
finally the e-branch books follow on a slight tangent from the original story, and that's all i've read so far........
i've tried SO HARD not to give anything away that my reviews probably sound a bit dull tbh, but if you like your stories to be clever, your plots to be dark, and your writing to be sharp then these are for you. without any doubt the very best books i have ever read.....
i cannot recommend them enough.....
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