Author Brian Lumley

Write Fright

A Creepy Conversation with Brian Lumley

by

Randy Garsee

British author Brian Lumley sat by a Phoenix hotel swimming pool, just outside of yet another convention of writers, readers, and publishers of the horror genre. He lit up a cigarette and looked at me, his eyes squinting as though this bestselling writer of vampire books wasn't exactly comfortable with the concept of daylight.

"Everybody has something that frightens them," he said and leaned toward me as if to make sure I understood the message. "Everyone has something that frightens them."

I agreed. I was sitting here under the Arizona sun talking to a guy with an English accent who was famous for scaring the bleep out of people. So, yeah. I agreed with him. And that's when he told me the secret behind his bestselling technique.

"I write about things that would frighten me," he confessed. "And that way I believe I'm going to grab my reader by the throat."

I swallowed and tugged lightly at my shirt collar.

"If it frightens me," he said, "It's going to frighten [the reader.]"

"But where is it going?" I asked him. "People, critics, say horror is dead. Do you believe that? What do you think?"

Lumley smiled and exhaled a cloud of smoke that drifted over the pool. "I think the future of horror belongs really in being able to explore the reader's mind. Like Hannibal Lecter. Get into your reader's mind and find out what frightens him."

Getting into the mind of what scares us is precisely what Lumley has been doing for more than 30 years. In fact, the focus of most of his stories is on the undead.

"I have a big stake in vampire stories you might say," he said and laughed, a deep, throaty voice of a man who loves his work.

Lumley knows what scares us because he's seen a lot of gut-wrenching, heart-pounding things in his time. He's a retired Royal Military policeman. He's taken the horror he's witnessed on the streets, thrown them into a surreal blender, mixed in the fictional dark side and the psychologically twisted, and punches "puree."

A prolific writer, Lumley's penned nearly 50 novels and short story collections, but he's probably best known for his Necroscope series where the main character is a psychic detective.

"My Necroscope series deals with a guy who talks to dead people," Lumley explained. "A paranormal talent. A psychic skill. He is more than just a psychic. He actually can converse with them and they can tell him all the secrets of the world and all the knowledge they took with them."

Lumley points out that Hollywood is raising the level for the horror genre through special effects that can recreate the most frightening imagination of any writer.

"Hollywood can do anything with special effects," Lumley said, snuffing the cigarette out in a ashtray. "So once upon a time you could be too extreme with horror. You're aliens could be too weird and far off. They can't be anymore, because they can be done. So if we can envision it, if we can see it in our mind's eye, it can be put on the screen."

For the latest information on Lumley visit www.brianlumley.com

From 2003

Like an Alien Landing

Mayberry on Steroids?

by 

Randy Garsee

     Have you ever watched Mayberry, R.F.D. or The Andy Griffith Show? What would the sheriff have done if large buildings started going up on a secluded piece of land just outside of quiet little Mayberry? And then he couldn’t find out why? Would he finally have to put on that gunbelt and give Barney Fife more than one bullet?
     Of course that plot was never part of a Mayberry episode but it has become a very real episode elsewhere, but first I had to travel more than 700 miles to a quiet little town in west Texas.
     Ten years ago, Randy Mankin went into the newspaper business. "I was looking for a way to stay in this town. We like this little town. It's like living in Mayberry."
     The Eldorado Success is a reflection of his Mayberry with its bad news. "Sometimes that means getting out of bed at three in the morning and going out and covering a car wreck."
     And its good news like, "Seeing someone getting a Lions Club recognition. That's just fantastic."
     A few months ago, however, Mankin's Mayberry began to whistle with questions, conspiracies and paranoia. "When this thing came to town, this story, it was so foreign to what everyone had seen it almost did seem like a UFO had landed."
     "Naturally, panic took over the town a little bit," said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran. He discovered the seeds of fear sprouted from a secluded ranch north of town. "Where they're building, it sets right in a valley, so, it's real hard to see anything. There was a heightened awareness within our community. There was a lot of fear of the unknown."
     And the unknown wanted to stay that way. The ranch gate stays locked. The red sign offers no warm welcome. To the side, a surveillance camera watches all those who approach. But the unknown could still be seen, as the sheriff pointed out, “Their biggest problem is aircraft flying over."
     "All of a sudden you see them in Shleicher County and it's like, my goodness what's going on down there,” said Justice of the Peace, Judge James Doyle. He took me on a flight over the ranch in question. The view from above showed a lot of major construction: three-story log cabins and buildings large enough to hold hundreds of people.
     Eventually, authorities contacted the names connected to the deed. At first they told the local officials that it was going to be a hunting lodge. It was a lie. Mankin says the stories kept changing. After the hunting lodge tale, they were told it was going to be a place for a businessman to entertain his Las Vegas clients.
     Mankin said, "First thing we thought was 'Well, the mob's coming to town.' It almost would have been easier to understand, had it been."
     The truth finally came from Arizona. It seems Eldorado's newest residents were Arizona transplants. Not just a few people but a religion, a religion that allows men to have more than one wife. The church, of course, is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or F-L-D-S.
     Thousands of its members live in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah.
"Fundamentalist Mormonism, I guess you'd call it, is not a common thing here in Texas and definitely not in Eldorado, Texas," said Sheriff Doran.
     As it turned out, the ranch would be used by a church accused of forced underage marriages, child abuse and financial misconduct. The church is led by a reclusive prophet who is being sued by his own nephew for sodomy. Understandably, the truth has not eased the minds of the citizens of Eldorado. Now there are new concerns of how many church members are moving here when the compound is finished and what are their plans for the once worry-free west Texas town?
     "As far as them taking over the community,” the sheriff said, “There are big concerns of that amongst the citizens."
     For now, newspaper editor Randy Mankin has the story of his career in a town he once compared to Mayberry.
     "Is it still Mayberry?" I asked.
     "It's Mayberry on steroids," Mankin said and laughed.

Fair Park in Dallas

A Universal Place

by

Randy Garsee

   

   In the shadow of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas is where you'll find it.  Fair Park is a universe of attraction, filled with museums, amusement rides and the fun of learning.  As Public Relations Director Anne Haskel explained, the Museum of Nature and Science is only one star glimmering in its cosmos.

  "There are other cultural institutions," she said.  "There's the Women's Museum and the Texas

Discovery Gardens, so you can really make a day trip."

   There's also the Planetarium with its space and history shows projected on its domed ceiling and don't forget the Ferris Wheel called the Texas Star or the Dallas Aquarium.  When you're tired of seeing things, you can hit the water.  You can rent a Swan paddle boat and make a round trip in the park's pond.  All the fun is in one location.

   "Especially if you're watching your pennies," Haskel said.  "You get a great value coming here.  There's 20 some-odd exhibitions, plus the Imax Theater."

   This is not a crock, although you'll see fossilized crocodiles.  It's a mammoth opportunity to see dinosaurs and a lot more.  Haskel said, "First of all, we have exhibits, both permanent and special traveling shows, that will appeal to a multi-generational age range."

   There's also the African-American Museum, the Museum of the American Railroad and the Hall of State which houses the Dallas Historical Society.  "Come try us.  Give us a day and, then, I really think you're just going to keep coming back," Haskel said.

   There is no doubt.  Fair Park is like a world within a world, a place certain to add to your universe of knowledge for as long as you want to stay.