Read an Excerpt

John Wayne Meets the Pink Panther (aka Brian Lumley)
BY ROBERT WEINBERG
 
 
CONSIDER this writing exercise: Describe a unique individual, in a manner other than listing the usual facts and figures associated with his work or his career. Paint an honest word-picture of him as seen through your eyes. Do it in a way to inform and entertain an audience of writers and editors, people who are not easily impressed.
Sound challenging? Like most assignments, it depends entirely on the person in question. In the fantasy field, few individuals are both colorful and talented enough to make it easy. Brian Lumley leads that list. Let me tell you a little about him. Done strictly from a first-person viewpoint and colored somewhat by years of friendship.
First and foremost, there’s Brian’s appearance. Most authors just don’t look tough. We are by and large a very plain lot. Decadent and Goth are terms used to describe a small enclave of our community, but a vast majority of us blend in with the crowds at the supermarket. Despite the hundreds of skulls we’ve crushed beneath our jeweled sandals, the scores of arms we’ve ripped from their sockets, the dozens of bellies we’ve sliced open with one slash of our scimitar, we do not fair well dealing with used car salesmen. With one notable exception: Brian Lumley.
Brian does more than walk the walk and talk the talk. When you shake his hand, all of the clichés from those old detective pulp magazines pop into your head. This guy’s got the goods. There’s no need for him to mention his military background. You sense it right away. Meeting Brian Lumley, you suddenly realize here’s Harry Keogh and Titus Crow and a bunch of other Lumley heroes rolled into one. Brian’s a walking advertisement for his books, he’s the real McCoy, the genuine article. When he casually states he knows seventeen ways to kill you with the rolled-up newspaper you are holding in your hand, you believe him. Though Brian is always the perfect gentleman, there’s that certain glint in his eye that informs you that if you’re going to a book signing in Iran, this is the writer you want at your side.
Brian favors Western string ties—the kind with black straps and silver and turquoise slides. One possible explanation for this fondness is that they can easily double as a strangler’s noose. However, the more probable reason is that they are the type of neckwear favored by John Wayne. And Brian Lumley is the world’s greatest John Wayne fan.
Wonder what’s the most memorable line spoken by Wayne in the movie version of True Grit? Can’t recall the best fight scene in Wayne’s many westerns? Need a reminder of the Duke’s big break in Stagecoach? Ask Brian. But be prepared to be overwhelmed.
Not only does Brian Lumley know everything about Wayne’s roles, his dialogue, and his characters, but he can imitate the Duke’s voice with the skill of a trained impersonator. Brian does his impression with such verve and good humor that you’d swear he’s John Wayne’s long-lost brother who was raised in England. Which would probably be worth investigating if it wasn’t for his other favorites.
For Brian isn’t just a John Wayne fan. His tastes in films are broad and varied. He has an astonishing memory for film history and dialogue. And what he likes, he can mimic with astonishing skill. Brian does a great Humphrey Bogart. In fact, he does pretty good impressions of all of the male leads in Casablanca! But writers, even ones who lovingly describe unholy vampiric monsters from another dimension, don’t thrive on action alone. Along with the Duke, Brian’s other favorite actor is Peter Sellers, the sillier the better. In other words, in the Pink Panther films.
Brian doesn’t imitate Sellers. No one can. But he does know the Pink Panther movies inside out. He remembers every gag, every joke, every pratfall. And, if you let him, he will describe them to you with boundless enthusiasm while pouring you glass after glass of his special punch.
That punch deserves a paragraph in itself. The elixir, as concocted by Brian from an ancient secret recipe (handed down from Bran Mak Morn, I suspect, or perhaps even Cthulhu itself), is right out of the films. It’s the stuff that Bob Hope drank and then passed out. Miners used it to numb the cold, and race car drivers poured into their fuel tanks to get an extra kick in their engines. It’s the stuff that turned Casper into a ghost.
Might I mention Brian’s fiction? Over the past few years, he’s gained world-wide fame for his Necroscope series, which blends vampires and fast action in a wild brew that is incredibly addictive. But the Necroscope novels, while among Brian’s very finest work, aren’t his only claim to literary fame.
His H. P. Lovecraft pastiches are highly entertaining and definitely not the same old stuff. His tales of Titus Crow feature a psychic investigator who is pleasingly competent and quite dangerous when the necessity arises. And in those stories it always does.
Plus Brian also writes contemporary horror belonging to no particular series. Remember “Big C?” Or the award-winning, and particularly frightening, “Fruiting Bodies?”
Brian Lumley is an author of astonishing skills. And he is a gentleman of equally amazing talents. I’ve known him for more than a decade and I’m proud to be numbered among his friends.
Remember what I said about some assignments being easier than others, depending on the subject? Writing this one was a pleasure.
Class dismissed.
 
Copyright © 2002 by ShadoWind, Inc., and Brian Lumley