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Necroscope was the first book I selected for my annual 'Month of Horror' books (3rd annual this time around). I had planned to add it to my list the second time around, but kind of ran out of time. King/Straub's The Talisman took a lot longer than I had expected last year. This time I put it first in rotation and even started a few days early (cheating?? It's my tradition... there are no rules 😀)

I didn't know a lot going into the story (I like it that way). I did have the impression that it was primarily involving vampires (not totally correct...) The covers of the books in the series have scary looking skulls on them �� with sharp pointy teeth (like Monty Python's Rabbit of Caerbannog , but actually scary). The artwork on the covers is great!

Minor spoilers ahead... I will spoiler-tag actual spoilers.

The book had a fair amount of the supernatural �� and had a vampire (view spoiler)[well a few... (hide spoiler)]. What I didn't expect was the cold war espionage aspects of the story. Basically each of the superpowers had their own ESPionage groups �� recruiting individuals with 'a particular set of skills'. Those skills vary �� in complexity and capabilities, but are all dealing with the supernatural. Some are 'spotters' (reminded me of Mistborn bronze enabled 'Seekers'). Some can predict the future. Some unique ones (view spoiler)[can talk the dead �� either via dialogue...or forcibly pulling secrets from your corpse (hide spoiler)]

The story sets up as East vs. West. The West in this case being Britain and the East being Russia. The timeframe is the early to mid 70s so right in the thick of the Cold War. The story follows two main characters... Harry Keogh on the British side and Dragosani for Russia. (or as it's often spelled in the book... Dragosaaani! - what a GREAT name 😀). The book primarily follows origin stories for each of them and jumps around in a non-linear way to tell their tales.

Harry really doesn't know what to make of his 'special skill' (view spoiler)[he's the Necroscope �� and can speak with the dead (hide spoiler)]. It starts with him at a young age and shows how he learns to use his abilities in a variety of ways. He has no support network to help him �� and is just figuring things out as he goes along. The folks around him �� know something is special about him �� but he does a relatively good job at not letting on what it is. He has a quite interesting and tragic backstory which is covered in great detail.

Dragosani's story starts at a young age too. He has special abilities too �� and �� I won't spoiler tag this one �� is related to the vampire line of Vamphyri and develops the powers of a Necromancer. He has a... spiritual advisor of sorts... well �� not really �� a spirit of a vampire that talks to him and teaches him some of the ways of the Vamphyri. Of course, Dragosani wants the power... and the actual vampire �� Thibor - wants to double cross him (no surprise there) �� and the interplay between the two is pretty well done.

Like a lot of vampire books they have their own spin on 'vampire lore'. Dragosani asks Thibor questions to try to get to the truth of things. Thibor tells him a lot of things, but he lies so much that you can't tell when he's actually debunking a vampire myth vs. just feeding Dragosani b.s. because he really doesn't want to tell him too much (else he loses some of his allure to entice Dragosani to return to him). The one I thought was quite interesting was about vampires assuming the shape of an animal... Thibor tells him that this isn't what happens at all, but is actually the vampire hypnotizing the person into thinking that's what happens.

Unrelated to this book �� but more alternate vampire lore... my favorite is Regis in The Witcher series when he explains 'vampire math' to Geralt... and how the spread vampirism doesn't make sense if you think about how quickly it would spread. But I digress... 😀 Lots of alternate 'vampire lore' in The Witcher series too.

The story covers multiple years and there really isn't much direct interaction between the two characters until near the end. It had a great ending (view spoiler)[the army of the dead was AWESOME! (hide spoiler)]. And... (view spoiler)[I'm not sure how they can continue on in the series with Harry since he became so powerful... maybe they follow on with his son? (hide spoiler)]

I love this quote��
“The arms had consisted of a shield bearing in bas-relief a dragon, one forepaw raised in threat; and riding upon its back, a bat with triangular eyes of carnelian; and surmounting both of these figures, the leering horned head of the devil himself, forked tongue protruding and dripping gouts of carnelian blood!�� 🐉 🦇 😈

Anyway, was there anything I didn't like? I kind of wish there had been more info about the other supernatural supporting characters. They did spend a little more page time with Batu (who was great �� even though he was on the side I was 'rooting against'. ) Batu made we want to try some slivovitz - haha). The book was pretty long �� they probably couldn't have spun off in directions with too many subplots w/o it easily getting to be over 1000 pages �� and that probably would have lost most folks. I kind of felt bad for (view spoiler)[Dragosani... at first he seemed to be not fully onboard with his power.. but as the story went on he kept slipping into pure evil (hide spoiler)]

Overall this was a great read and I plan to continue with the series. It was a great start to my 'month of horrors' for sure. It was quite an interesting concept and crossed from the horror genre into that of fantasy and even a little sci-fi ((view spoiler)[with the time space bending �� Möbius stuff (hide spoiler)]). I would recommend to any of my GR friends that like these genres. 🧛🏻‍♂��