"Brian Lumley - A Coven Of Vampires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

But ah, those books! Do you remember all those big, heavy, black-bound books? Fifty Great
Mysteries! Fifty Great Tales of Terror and the Imagination! Fifty This and Fifty That. Perhaps
those weren't the precise titles - it's hard to remember now - but I'll never forget the weight
and the looks, and the smell, of those books; they were musty even then. The black bat embossed
into the binding cloth; the claw-like hand drawing back the curtains, and the sinister figure
beyond the curtains. And the interior illustrations. The horrid interior illustrations! The naked
black girl wrapped in a carnivorous tree's tendrils, being hoisted to her doom like a cocooned
fly. That one stuck in my boy's mind for a long time; it's still there, in fact, just as fresh
(and as monstrous) as ever.
All those books, and some of them must have contained vampire stories, I'm sure . . .

I had a library ticket when I was eight, and I think I was maybe halfway through Bram Stoker's
Dracula before 'they' even noticed. But that was okay . . . Dracula was a classic after all. Then
my big brother, Harry -just about to be drafted for National Service - started to read it, and he


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asked the Old Folks: 'Do you really think he should be reading this? Won't it give him
nightmares?' Thanks a bunch, big brother! After that I had to read it chapter by chapter in the
library.
Before I was sixteen, I was out of school and had a job as an apprentice machinist. That meant a
bus ride into town every workday, and there was a newsagent opposite where I got off the bus. It
must have been the early to mid-50s, and one morning I saw this garish magazine cover glaring at
me through the window of the shop. Weird Tales, And the 's' looked like it was about to fall off
the end of the title.
Those British edition WT were - wow! - a whole shilling each in those days. That was good money.
In pristine condition they'd easily fetch two hundred times that amount now. That is really good
money! But just looking at the cover of that first of many issues (my first issue, anyway) was
like seeing one of those ancient mariner maps with the legend 'Here be Monsters,' stamped over
uncharted waters. And in WT's terms, 'Here be Vampires,' too! Oh, yes, those magazines were
definitely my blood group. And I used to suck 'em bone dry.
1958. The year I was drafted. And that was a horror story in its own right . . . well, until I got
to like it. And I liked it so much I signed on for twenty-two years. But that's not the only
reason I remember '58. Not a bit of it, for it's also the year they released Dracula on film again
- only this time with Christopher Lee as the bloodthirsty Count. Now tell me, isn't that scene
where he strides past the castle's battlements with his cloak belling behind him just one of your
favourites? It's one of mine, be sure!

But whoa - I've missed something! And a very important something at that. Do you remember EC? No,
of course you don't, 'cos you were a little kid then and your big brother would probably have told
on you. Tales From the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror, and . . . God, there was a whole gaggle of
them! Not only EC but other publishers, too. Frankenstein, Black Magic - man, I remember those
titles! And they were called 'comics' . . .?
You know, I'm frequently accused of using too many exclamation marks. But honestly, how could I
write this without them? I need exclamation marks to make my point. Which is that EC was Vampire
Wonderland to me. Was there ever an issue without a vampire story? Well, maybe, but I can't
remember one. (Or maybe I just don't want to.)
Even worse, I can't remember where or when I first read Richard Matheson's / Am Legend, but I do