Brian Lumley, 1937 - 2024

 

With a heavy heart, I share the info that my friend and long time collaborator -I did the art-on the US versions of NECROSCOPE books since 1987, has passed away....

Please feel free to share this post, but please if you have my telephone number don't call as I don't know when I'll be able to handle them.

 

It saddens me to have to tell you all that:

International Best Selling Author Brian Lumley sadly passed away at his home this January. He was the winner of many prestigious awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writer’s Association in 2010. Famous for his groundbreaking Necroscope® series, he went on to become one of the top writers in the Horror field. Although Brian had crossed genres between Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy, Brian had many other series under his belt such as: The Primal Lands, Hero of Dreams, Psychomech, Titus Crow, etc. And of course, all the Mythos stories with his own twist.

 

After a 22-year stint as a Royal Military Policeman, he had a long and prosperous lifetime of doing what he loved to do, bringing continued enjoyment to all his readers and listeners. Brian has written approximately 60 books along with many, many short stories, and novellas.

 

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

 

He may be gone but his legacy will live on in the hearts of us all. Especially me.

 

Barbara Ann Lumley

January 28, 2024

December 2, 1937 - January 2024

Gone But Certainly Not Forgotten

 

on a more personal note, I met Brian and Silkey at one of the DragonCons when they were able to make it to the US. Brian was set up for a signing session and was sharing a room with this fellow who was in comics, Stan Lee. The interesting part was that Brian's line was longer. Brian had time after finishing everyone in their line to sit and talk while waiting to see if anyone came in before his time was over. He and Silky were very pleasant and accommodating. Several weeks after the Con, I received a package in the mail and Brian send a couple of the volumes we had discussed in their UK editions. 

A terue gentleman and he will be missed.

News from Brian A Hopkins

 

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: COVER REVEAL!

I think it's time we talk about my next book:

THE WOMAN OF COLOR'S TALE

I don't have a release date for you, but we should know that soon. The wonderful folks at Yard Dog Press are pretty quick once a project comes together, and they now have pretty much everything in hand. I should have probably waited before making the announcement, but I am just too excited about this book. Can't keep my mouth shut any longer.

I teased quite a bit about the book while I was writing it, so I won't go into a lot of intimate details now ... just trust me when I say it's going to lift your knickers. Here's your first look at the cover art.

---------------------------

...The Serpente was gently heeled to port, rolling waves breaking at her bow to ripple the length of her waterline, trailing abaft her stern in a foamy “V.” The sea was a roiling indigo landscape, tipped in crimson where her waves broke in spindrift. Breathing deep of the fresh air, Buchanan thought then that he could grow to love the sea. Love the ship, with the wind on her sails, the rigging taut, the sea dark and surging with immeasurable power, everything humming in a salty harmony. To reconfigure and restrict one’s world to the span of a vessel’s deck, the open ocean, and all that sky overhead might not be a bad trade. To test oneself against something so beautiful and dangerous in equal measure, it felt in that moment like a calling, something larger than himself. He knew he would recall to the end of his days what he was feeling, the music and mystery of it all.

He was alive.

He realized that he was the farthest from home that he’d ever been. The Scottish Highlands and all that he had ever known were lost in his wake. New countries, even new continents, lay before him. He knew that with each new land under his feet, he would grow and change, just as he had done when he first set foot on the Serpente. His life had been forever altered when he answered Clan Buchanan’s call at Culloden, and though he would still change that decision if he could, foregoing all that he’d suffered, he couldn’t argue that in the end he would be the better for it … if he survived the days to come.

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THE WOMAN OF COLOR'S TALE, a short novel by four-time Bram Stoker Award winner Brian A. Hopkins, coming soon from Yard Dog Press. (Available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.)

UPDATE: Yard Dog says MARCH 1st. Woohoo!

Terrific book news

 

The Official Philip José Farmer Email Hello to everyone on the PJF Newsletter list! Today we mark Phil's 106th birthday with an announcement from Meteor House! Their first book for 2024 is . . .  Secrets of the Nine, an omnibus edition containing A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees, and The Mad Goblin. With cover art by Douglas Klauba (coming soon!) and a new introduction to the omnibus by R. Paul Sardanas (aka “Doc Talos”), this is the definitive collection of the adventures of Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith! This volume also features previously published essays by Theodore Sturgeon and Art Sippo, as well as a Nine Universe timeline by Win Scott Eckert and a new afterword to the omnibus by Eckert. Meteor House also has news about their overdue project, The Full Account. As they've mentioned elsewhere, weaving two novels together turned out to be more complicated than expected. And when it comes to Farmer, they don't do anything halfway, so they kept working on it till they got it right. But, all the files are now with the printer and the book will be shipping in the next few weeks! By the way, no such delays are expected with Secrets of the Nine, most of the book is already laid out and it should ship to customers in June. And finally I'd like to share a hearty congratulations to my close friend Christopher Paul Carey on being promoted to Vice President of Publishing at ERB Inc. Chris was an early contributor to the Farmer website and an editor and regular contributor to Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer. He also co-authored, with Farmer, The Song of Kwasin, then went on to write three more novellas in the Ancient Opar series: Exiles of Kho; Hadon, King of Opar; and Blood of Ancient Opar. And in his time at ERB Inc., he's done a fantastic job with the ERB Authorized Library, the ERB Universe, and much more!  Mike Croteau The Official Philip José Farmer Web Page www.pjfarmer.com

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2024, THE YEAR OF MARS, NEWS FROM EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS, INC.

 

Onward to the Year of Mars, and More!

ERB Authorized Library Update One major achievement of this past year was wrapping up production on Tarzan volumes #21–24 in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library. For the first time in decades, all 24 volumes of the original adult Tarzan books will soon be back in print. Since our printer slowed down its output over the holidays, we are now expecting the books to begin shipping sometime in January 2024. It won’t be long now! So, you might ask, what’s next? Mars, of course! Specifically, what we have begun calling the Year of Mars, with multiple Barsoom titles to be released in 2024. We are already well underway on the production of Barsoom volumes #1–3. The texts of the three novels are being proofread, the new front and back matter is being written, and artist Joe Jusko is hard at work creating a new set of stunning and iconic cover paintings and frontispieces destined to stand the test of time alongside more than a century's worth of imaginative visualizations of ERB’s Barsoom. With rising printing and production costs, we’ve decided to make it a little less painful for your pocketbook by releasing smaller sets of ERB Authorized Library volumes at a time, which will also allow us publish sets at a faster rate and get them into your hands sooner. So the first Barsoom set will include the classic three-book John Carter of Mars trilogy—A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and The Warlord of Mars—which we hope to put up for preorder this Spring. Then, a few short months later, after the first set has shipped to customers, we’ll switch to releasing two-book sets, with the next set to go up for preorder consisting of Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars. And then presales for another two-book set will be announced only a few months later, and so on. This should help cut down on the time between preorder announcements and shipping the final product to customers—something we think we can all get behind, since we are as eager to release these timeless tales of adventure and romance as we know you are eager to read them! Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe Update Continuing with the Year of Mars, we are thrilled to be publishing the first novel to feature everyone’s favorite incomparable princess in the lead role—Dejah Thoris! A Princess of Mars: Shadow of the Assassins by Ann Tonsor Zeddies (author of Deathgift, Steel Helix, and Blood and Roses: A Jayne Taylor Novel, as well as the ERB Universe novelette “Victory Harben: Stormwinds of Va-nah”) turned in her novel earlier this year and has been waiting patiently for it to advance in the publishing cue. Well, the time is almost nigh! As soon as the cover art is finished, we’ll be putting the book up for preorder. As a bonus, the back pages of A Princess of Mars: Shadow of the Assassins will feature a brand-new novelette, “John Carter of Mars: Swords of the Mind” by fan-favorite author Geary Gravel (John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten). While 2024 is the Year of Mars, it’s also the 100th anniversary of the book publication of The Land That Time Forgot and the 50th anniversary of the 1974 film of the same name directed by Kevin Connor and starring Doug McClure. To commemorate these occasions, we have commissioned a new Caspak novel to be written titled The Land That Time Forgot: Fortress Primeval. The author of the novel will be Mike Wolfer, whom ERB fans will know from the quality work he’s done on a host of Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe comic books and graphic novels, as well as for writing the prose novelettes “Victory Harben: Clash on Caspak” and “Beyond the Farthest Star: Escape on Zandar.” We are also extremely excited to bring author Joshua Reynolds on board the ERB Universe team to write a direct sequel to The Monster Men, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic horror novel exploring the spine-tingling question of what it really means to be human. Josh has written more than 30 novels and numerous works of short fiction for properties such as Warhammer, Legend of the Five Rings, Mack Bolan: The Executioner, and Arkham Horror, in addition to penning his own excellent 1920s pulp-inspired Casefiles of the Royal Occultist series. We don’t yet have a release date for Return of the Monster Men, so it's possible this one may slip onto the 2025 release schedule, but we wanted to let you know that the Monster Men are coming! And just to make sure everyone’s caught up on the story, we plan to release Return of the Monster Men simultaneously with a special Vintage Cover Art Edition of ERB’s original The Monster Men novel. Stay tuned! Additionally, we’re happy to report that Win Scott Eckert’s upcoming novel, Korak at the Earth’s Core, Book One of The Dead Moon Super-Arc, is still on track for an early 2024 release. Win, of course, is the author of the very popular ERB Universe novel Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, so you’re not going to want to miss this first book in this brand-new Super-Arc. Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe Illustrated Epics Update Last year saw the publication of the ERB Universe prose novel Victory Harben: Fires of Halos by Christopher Paul Carey, featuring wayward scientist and adventurer Victory Harben, who finds herself unwittingly transported to the Omos planetary system from Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel Beyond the Farthest Star (among other destinations in the spacetime continuum). We are proud to be presenting the next chapter in Victory's far-flung exploits very soon, this time in the form of the full-length graphic novel Victory Harben: Ghosts of Omos, written by Mike Wolfer and illustrated by Alessandro Ranaldi, with colors by Arthur Hesli and lettering by Natalie Jane. But that's not all. Alongside Ghosts of Omos, we will also be releasing a trade paperback titled Victory Harben: Warriors of Zandar, which will collect all four issues of the critically acclaimed Beyond the Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar mini-series. The campaign for both graphic novels will launch on Kickstarter early in the New Year, and will include exclusive Kickstarter rewards that you'll truly have to see to believe! (Hmmm...handcrafted Hucklebuck plushies, anyone...?) Oh, we almost forgot... Another reason you might want to check out Victory Harben: Ghosts of Omos is because, in addition to being a satisfying standalone story, it just happens to be the lead-in to the upcoming, yet-to-be announced Victory Harben prose novel by Christopher Paul Carey. (Wait...did we just announce it...? More details on that later!)

Cover credits (left to right): Richard Ortiz & Arthur Hesli; Mike Wolfer & Arthur Hesli; Alessandro Ranaldi & Bruna Costa; and cover model Nina Andrade with design by Mike Wolfer

Also, if you missed the Kickstarter Edition of The Moon Maid: The Three Keys graphic novel (and even if you didn't!), look for the Mass Market Edition to be arriving soon in the ERB Universe Illustrated Epics section of our webstore. And if that's not enough for you, we have even more ERB Universe Illustrated Epics in the works, but we'll save the details of those projects for a later time! Follow Us On Kickstarter! Get the first look at each ERB Universe Illustrated Epic as it launches on Kickstarter! Just create a Kickstarter account or sign into your existing account, then click on the “Follow” button on ERB, Inc.’s Kickstarter profile page to be notified each time we have a new campaign ready for launch! Special Note: Our Kickstarter campaigns offer collectible Kickstarter exclusive and variant editions, along with other merchandise, that will never be made available anywhere else.

Wild Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs Update And closing out the Year of Mars, we have Gauntlets of Mars: A Novel of Barsoom, the stunning sequel to Chris L Adams acclaimed novel Dark Tides of Mars. The latter story ended on something of a cliffhanger for protagonist Dat Voga, so we are all waiting with bated breath to find out what will happen in the next chapter of our hero's amazing odyssey. We’ll also get answers to some intriguing questions about the mysteries of Ancient Barsoom before the seas dried up and scavenging hordes of green Martians began roving the forlorn, moss-covered dead sea bottoms. Last Chance—Holiday Sale Ending Soon! Don't miss out on unprecedented savings—the massive Holiday Sale in our online store ends January 8, 2024! From ERB-related books, comics, puzzles, and playing cards to our classy Tarzan Crest Clothing and Hand-Painted Tarzan Centennial Anniversary Statue crafted by legendary artist Joe DeVito, it's all on sale!