The Dead and the Undead

Vamphyri! is the second book in Brian Lumley’s popular Necroscope seriesI had previously read, and immensely enjoyed, volume 1, Necroscope. While I didn’t think this book was quite as good as its predecessor, I still thought it was exceptionally good.

This book tells the story of Harry Keogh, the vampiric Yulian Bodescu, and the British and Russian ESP spy groups. As the novel begins, Harry—the necroscope—is slightly dead, and sharing the body of his infant son. He discovers that the vampires, who he believed had been exterminated in the previous book, were not quite gone yet. Yulian Bodescu had been infected with the vampiric taint while still in the womb, making hm a half vampire. Now the ghost of the master vampire Thibor Ferenczy plans to use Yulian to return to life, but with the combined help of the two ESP branches, Harry tries to destroy the vampires once and for all.

As I said, I didn’t like this book quite as much as the original, mainly because Harry wasn’t in it quite as much. However, this book does have much of interest. We get the life story of Thibor Herenczy and his maker. We get to know other members of the British psychic spies. We get to meet a vampire who’s even more horrible than the one from the last book. The plot is excellent, and the writing is well up to par.

I definitely think this book is well worth reading, though you should definitely read the first volume first. I give this book 4.5 yo-yos.



Up next, I'm reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Bloody Sun.