Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly Good, 28 Jul 2006
i've read all the necroscope novels, and have enjoyed them all immensely (especially Vampire World). the only one i didn't enjoy that much was Necroscope II : Wamphyri, which, even with it's great ending was just average. With this in mind, i certainly thought that necroscope had ended on number 13 (Avengers). so, i was a little worried that Lumley would start to mess things up with trying to come up with something different. Thankfully, Lumley has always managed to put something different into each novel, and in this one, the 'villains' are not Wamphyri, but aliens.
it sounds crazy, but thankfully lumley makes them frightening and interesting at the same time. there is a new character, scott st john, who is hit by the golden dart of Harry (from book 5), so as you have guessed, this is based between necroscope 5 and vampire world. amazingly, i was never bored reading this novel, as i was expecting to be, and the story was surprisingly engaging and the finale was quite astonishing. i won't spoil it, but you definitely don't see the ending coming.
Overall, another very good novel, and well worthy of it's place in the necroscope series. not the best (nothing beats Bloodwars), but still very good.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, but not up to his usual standard, 14 Jun 2007
As a massive fan of the Necroscope series I had been looking forward to the release of this book for months before it finally came out. Whilst noone would ever come close the original main character, Harry Keogh, Lumley's last offering of Jake Cutter had whetted the appetite for more.
To be honest, the new character, Scott St John, did not fill me with any form of empathy as the other two had done and whilst I think that Lumley was to brave to steer away from the Wamphyri as his villain of choice, the new 'bad' characters were so similar that they might as well have been anyway!
All in all, the book is readable and entertaining - as his work usually is - but it lacks the depth and the ability to encapture the reader as this series previously has. Fans of his will enjoy it as I did, but it doesn't even begin to compare with the original Necroscope series.
I hope this isn't the last book in the series as it would be a pretty average note to end it on.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
For the Fan Only, 14 Oct 2006
This is another in the Necroscope series by Brian Lumley.The order you should read these books in is; Necroscope, Wamphyri!, The Lost Years 1, The Lost Years 2, The Source, Deadspeak, Deadspawn and then into the Vampire World series of Blood Brothers, The last Aerie and then Blood Wars, and then into the E-Branch series of Invaders, Defilers and then Avengers.This book is in between the Vampire World series and the E-Branch series.
All the above are excellent books, though i have to say the original series with Harry Keogh as the necroscope is the best.If you haven't read all of these books then i would recommend you do, or the plot of this book will not really make too much sense.This book assumes that you know a lot of the Necroscope history.
So, what to make of this one?
Well, i am a huge Necroscope fan and a bigger fan of Brian Lumley, and i was desperate to read this book.
The good things about the book are the characters.I liked the lead character Scott - i felt empathy for him.And the book also has more of Ben Trask,David Chung and Ian Goodly who are all great characters that fans of the series will enjoy reading about.
But this book is seriously flawed in my opinion.Lumley seems to be running out of ideas and is in real danger of letting the quality of the Necroscope novels slip.Maybe it is because he has written so many now, or maybe it is that after all his previous books on the subject that he doesn't have any fresh ideas.The first series was amazing - those five books are among the best horror books you would ever wish to read, and the Vampire World novels are pretty close to them.But E-Branch saw a slip in my view and this carries on the trend i am sorry to say.
To me there are some great ideas - the whole numerology aspect of the number three is a great idea that is mentioned lots of times in the first half of the book, but is barely mentioned in the second half and not resolved adequately.
But i didn't like the whole back story of the evil characters.I won't spoil this for you, but i think you will be disappointed with them and their origins.
I read this but it didn't grip me like the other books and i was disappointed by a lot of this book - pacing, plot, and 'feel'.The other books have been dark and twisted - this just didn't seem the same to me.
However, any fan of the Necroscope series will want this and i would include myself in that, just to see what Lumley has done with his ideas.
If you are a first time Necroscope reader then STOP!!!! And read the very first series.
If you are stuck for more Brian Lumley i would recommend the Titus Crow novels (they come in omnibus editions) or the Psychomech trilogy.
I hope that Brian Lumley comes up with some ground breaking ideas for any future Necroscope novels, or finishes the series whilst they are still loved by all of his fans. I am keeping my fingers crossed!!!!!
Sorry - I really wanted to love this book.
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