Necroscope by Brian Lumley - Book Review

The very first thing I had to do after finishing Necroscope was listen to the theme to Lifeforce (1985). Why? Because there was no better way for me to ride the insane high that this novel's bonkers and breathtaking amount of chaos, carnage, and confounding metaphysical twists and turns had just gifted me with. 

Although this novel predates Tobe Hooper's delirious and over-the-top vampire opus by some three or so years, Lifeforce is far closer in style, tone, and approach to Lumley's pulpy joyride of a novel than it was to its credited source material, which was a cerebral science fiction novel by Colin Wilson with the pulp sounding title The Space Vampires.

Necroscope tells the stories of two very different men. One is a Soviet necromancer named Boris Dragosani, who has been given the power to yank and rip secrets out of the dead in exchange for helping awaken a long-imprisoned vampire. The other is Harry Keogh, a young man born with the ability to commune with the dead in a far kinder, gentler and constructive manner. Their powers will, in time, bring them face-to-face in a bloody conflict to decide whether the world will be saved or subjugated.

As much fun as it was for me to read, there were a couple of drawbacks to Necroscope I feel need pointing out. 

First, if a natural or realistic style of writing and storytelling is your thing, then Necroscope will not be for you. Brian Lumley cannonballs into the deepest end of the Romanticism literary pool and haves at it. You will either go with the theatrical fireworks, or you won't.

Because nobody, and I do mean nobody, in this book acts or sounds in anyway like a real human being. Even as far back as 1982, when the book was first published in the UK, and 1988, when it was first published in the United States, Lumley's prose would have read as melodramatic, over-the-top, and purple as all get out.

That is, admittedly, a highly subjective drawback.

Second, and far more damaging and not at all subjective, is the questionable sexual politics that are displayed in the book. The female characters throughout are either feisty, aggressive harlots or adoring, supportive mother figures. Which is... problematic, at best.

I am sure some might argue that Lumley was purposeful in using cartoonish embodiments of the Madonna-whore complex in Necroscope, but even that read is a troublesome one. Because, in the story, the female characters only exist to either support and nurture Harry Keogh or to tempt and torment Boris Dragosani.

So, yeah. That is a drawback that will be a contemptuous deal-breaker for quite a few readers. Yet I still managed to have fun reading what, at heart, is just James Bond vs. the Army of Darkness.