A review by rotorguy64
Auferstehung by Brian Lumley, Andreas Diesel
4.0
It's a Cold War thriller with vampires, and it's pretty good. Not perfect, by any means. Some of the writing was sexier than it should've been, in my humble opinion, and some was so clunky it hurt. You know this trope where two characters discuss their past relationship among each other for several pages so the reader knows what's up? The way normal, living people absolutely never do? Necroscope does that. It also does a bunch of other things I found grating. Nevertheless, at the of the day, I liked it.
The novel seemed to lack focus or any structure I can make sense of. The first two-thirds or so of the book, every character had his own agenda and there was no plot in sight, until it suddenly sprang out of the ground. Miraculously, in this instance, it worked, and it worked really well. Necroscope reads like it has the substance of a novel, but the form of a Cold War espionage account, like [b:In Search of Enemies|1150248|In Search of Enemies A CIA Story|John Stockwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181419576l/1150248._SX50_.jpg|1137719] or perhaps [b:Poisoner in Chief|43565322|Poisoner in Chief Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control|Stephen Kinzer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635942725l/43565322._SY75_.jpg|67780582]. It fits the Cold War-charme of this book.
The worldbuilding might be some of the finest I've seen. The vampires, or wamphyri as they're named in this book, are symbiotic lifeforms that turn their hosts into inhuman monstrosities with supernatural powers. They're recognizable as actual vampires despite the originality, and that alone is a big feat, but it's not Lumleys greatest. The greatest is making a crossover of vampires, necromancers, telepaths, MI6 and a dozen other supernatural entities and still have it appear as an organic whole and not like he threw it all into one bowl and called it a soup. Most authors would struggle populating their fictional world with vampires and werewolves without making it seem constructed.
The end was a blast.
The novel seemed to lack focus or any structure I can make sense of. The first two-thirds or so of the book, every character had his own agenda and there was no plot in sight, until it suddenly sprang out of the ground. Miraculously, in this instance, it worked, and it worked really well. Necroscope reads like it has the substance of a novel, but the form of a Cold War espionage account, like [b:In Search of Enemies|1150248|In Search of Enemies A CIA Story|John Stockwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181419576l/1150248._SX50_.jpg|1137719] or perhaps [b:Poisoner in Chief|43565322|Poisoner in Chief Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control|Stephen Kinzer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635942725l/43565322._SY75_.jpg|67780582]. It fits the Cold War-charme of this book.
The worldbuilding might be some of the finest I've seen. The vampires, or wamphyri as they're named in this book, are symbiotic lifeforms that turn their hosts into inhuman monstrosities with supernatural powers. They're recognizable as actual vampires despite the originality, and that alone is a big feat, but it's not Lumleys greatest. The greatest is making a crossover of vampires, necromancers, telepaths, MI6 and a dozen other supernatural entities and still have it appear as an organic whole and not like he threw it all into one bowl and called it a soup. Most authors would struggle populating their fictional world with vampires and werewolves without making it seem constructed.
The end was a blast.