Brian Lumley (1937-2024)

Horror writer Brian Lumley, 86, died January 2, 2024. Lumley was best known for his Mythos fiction, and for the bestselling Necroscope series.

Lumley was born December 2, 1937 in County Durham in England, and served in the military police in the British Army for 22 years before retiring in 1980 to write full time.

He published his first story in the late ‘60s, and became known in the ‘70s for his Lovecraftian stories, especially those about character Titus Crow, who also appeared in novels including The Burrowers Beneath (1974), The Transition of Titus Crow (1975), The Clock of Dreams (1978), Spawn of the Winds (1978), In the Moons of Borea (1979), and Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu (1989).

In 1986 he launched his popular vampire series with Necroscope (1982), followed by sequels Wamphyri! (1988), The Source (1989), Necroscope IV: Deadspeak (1990), and Necroscope V: Deadspawn (1991). The sequence also had spin-offs, including the Vampire World, the Lost Years, and the E-Branch series; the last book in the saga was The Mobius Murders in 2013.

Other novels include his debut Beneath the Moors (1974), Khai of Ancient Khem (1981), The Return of the Deep Ones (1984), Demogorgon (1987), The Fly-by-Nights (2011), and titles in the Psychomech and New Adventures in H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands series.

His short fiction was collected in numerous volumes, among them The Caller of the Black (1971), The Horror at Oakdeene and Others (1977), Ghoul Warning and Other Omens (1982), The Last Rite (1992), Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi (1993), Dagon’s Bell and Other Discords (1994), The Second Wish and Other Exhalations (1995), In His Own Write: Brian Lumley: Necroscribe (1997), A Coven of Vampires (1998), Ghoul Warning and Other Omens… and Other Omens (1999), The Whisperer and Other Voices (2001), Beneath the Moors and Darker Places (2002), Brian Lumley’s Freaks (2004), The House of the Temple (2004), Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space (2006), The Taint and Other Novellas (2007), Haggopian and Other Stories (2008), The Nonesuch and Others (2009), No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories (2012), and Short Tall Tales (2023).

In 1998, Lumley was made a Grand Master by the World Horror Association. He was active in the Horror Writers Association at the height of his career, and served as president in 1996-97; they presented him with the Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, the same year he won a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

He is survived by his wife Barbara Ann (Silky) Lumley, daughter Julie, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.