Career
Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army"s Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer Several of his early books were published by Arkham House. Other stories pastiched Lovecraft"s Dream Cycle but featured Lumley"s original characters David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer.
Also, they like to have a laugh along the way." Later works included the Necroscope series of novels, which produced spin-off series such as the Vampire World Trilogy, The Lost Years parts 1 and 2, and the East-Branch trilogy.
The central protagonist of the earlier Necroscope novels appears in the anthology Harry Keogh and Other Weird Heroes. The latest entry in the Necroscope saga is The Mobius Murders.
Lumley served as president of the Horror Writers Association from 1996 to 1997. Lumley"s list of his favourite horror stories—"not complete by any means and by no means in order of preference"—includes M. R. James" "Count Magnus", Robert East. Howard"s "The Black Stone", Robert West. Chambers" "The Yellow Sign" from The King in Yellow, William Hope Hodgson"s "The Voice in the Night", and H. P. Lovecraft"s "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Colour Out of Space".
A Coven of Vampires (1998) What Dark God? Back Row The Strange Years The Kiss of the Lamia Recognition The Thief Immortal Necros The Thing from the Blasted Heath Uzzi Haggopian The Picknickers Zack Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler The House of the Temple Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space "Snarker"s Son" "The Manitoba Who Felt Pain" "The Strange Years" "Number Way Home" "The Manitoba Who Saw Number Spiders" "Deja Viewer" "Feasibility Study" "Gaddy"s Gloves" "The Big "C"" The Taint and other novellas: Best Mythos Tales, Volume One (2007) "" The Horror at Oakdeene Born of the Winds The Fairground Horror The Taint Rising with Surtsey Lord of the Worms The House of the Temple Haggopian and other stories (2008) The Caller of the Black Haggopian Cement Surroundings The House of Cthulhu The Night Sea-Maid Went Down Name and Number Recognition Curse of the Golden Guardians Aunt Hester The Kiss of Bugg-Shash De Marigny"s Clock Mylakhrion the Immortal The Sister City What Dark God? The Statement of Henry Worthy Dagon"s Bell The Thing from the Blasted Heath Dylath Leen The Mirror of Nitocris The Second Wish The Hymn Synchronicity or Something The Black Recalled The Sorcerer"s Dream The Nonesuch and Others (2009) "The Thin People" "Stilts" The Nonesuch The Fly-by-Nights (2011).