Avengers (Necroscope Series)

The packed cruise ship is a terrific nesting ground for a Lord and Lady of the Wamphyri on the run from E-Branch and the new Necroscope, Jake Cutter. By the time the ship is reported missing, the few beings still living on board will no longer be human . . . and the Wamphyri will be long fled to their next conquest.

Korath, the vampire who lurks in Jake Cutter's mind, is determined to gain control of Jake's life, and Jake is equally determined not to let him have it. But to win this struggle Jake must confide in Ben Trask-and Trask, the head of E-Branch, is likely to want Jake dead the minute he learns of Jake's intrusive passenger!

The spore garden planted under London by the third Wamphyri, Lord Swartz, is bearing bitter fruit indeed as a mysterious sleeping sickness-with a vampiric taint-slowly spreads among the population of Great Britain.

E-Branch action teams have more on their plates than they can handle. They must locate terrorists who threaten the world with nuclear homicide; permanently close the Gate between the Wamphyri world and Earth; analyze the spore plague; and locate and destroy the three Wamphyri.

Even the powers of Harry Keogh, the original Necroscope, summoned from the Great Beyond via the combined powers of E-Branch's strongest agents, may not be enough to defeat the monsters who have brought Earth to the brink of total destruction.

The men and women of E-Branch and the new Necroscope, Jake Cutter, are anxious to find—and destroy—the Wamphryi trio who are intent on converting Earth into a vampire hunting ground. After turning a cruise ship into a bloody battleground, Lord Malinari and Lady Vavara plan their next campaign, while Lord Swartz's spores spread a mysterious sleeping sickness that turns its victims into something other than human.

E-Branch action teams have almost more on their plates than they can handle—locating renegade communists who threaten nuclear homicide; cooperating with Gustav Turchin, head of Russia's mind-spy organization, in trying to permanently close the Gate between the Wamphyri world and Earth; analyzing the spore plague; and always, always hunting the Wamphyri.

Publishers Weekly

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 d j 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. (June 5) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Brian Lumley is the author of the bestselling Necroscope series of vampire novels. The first Necroscope, Harry Keogh, also appears in a collection of Lumley's short fiction, Harry Keogh and Other Weird Heroes, along Titus Crow and Henri Laurent de Marigny, from Titus Crow, Volumes One, Two, and Three, and David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer, from the Dreamlands series.

An acknowledged master of Lovecraft-style horror, Brian Lumley has won the British Fantasy Award and been named a Grand Master of Horror. His works have been published in more than a dozen countries and have inspired comic books, role-playing games, and sculpture, and been adapted for television.

When not writing, Lumley can often be found spear-fishing in the Greek islands, gambling in Las Vegas, or attending a convention somewhere in the US. Lumley and his wife live in England.